Top 10 Facts About Zapping Trash with Plasma
by Louis J. Circeo, director of plasma research, Georgia Tech Research Institute
“Plasma Gasification can create more renewable energy than the projected energy from solar, wind, landfill gas and geothermal energies combined.” – Georgia Tech Research Institute
Reposted from Discovery Online
1. It reduces the need for landfills.
Sometimes called “artificial lightning,” plasma can have temperatures that can exceed 7,000 degrees centigrade — that’s three times hotter than fossil fuels and hotter than the surface of the sun. The plasma arc would instantly convert organic materials into synthetic gas, often called “syngas,” and melt inorganic materials, which when cooled, become rock-like and can be sold as construction materials. With no remaining waste to deal with, landfills become obsolete.
2. Existing landfills could be mined for energy.
In many regions of the United States, it would be more cost-effective to take municipal solid waste to a plasma gasification plant for energy production than to dump it in a landfill. When plasma gasification is fully developed, even existing landfills could be economically mined for energy production, environmental cleanup and land reuse.
3. It’s energy efficient.
Plasma gasification of 1 ton of average municipal solid wastes would send about 815 Kilowatt-hours of electricity to the grid. This is 20 to 50 percent more electricity to the grid than any other emerging thermal waste-to-energy technology. In addition, this amount of power is over six times the electricity required to conduct the plasma gasification process.
4. It’s working in other countries.
Since 2002, two commercial waste-to-energy plasma gasification plants have been operating successfully in Japan. The Mihama-Mikata facility processes 24 tons of municipal sold waste and 4 tons of sewage sludge per day, producing steam and hot water for local use. The Utashinai plant processes up to 300 tons per day of waste and/or automobile shredder residue. This facility produces up to 7.9 Megawatts of electricity, of which 3.6 MW are used to run the plasma torches and the plant, and up to 4.3 MW are sent to the electrical power grid. In Ottawa, Canada, people are evaluating a demonstration facility that is currently processing 94 tons of waste per day, sending 4 MW of power to the grid.
5. It could produce ethanol fuel.
If all the municipal solid waste in the United States was processed by plasma gasification, over 5 percent of the U.S. electrical energy requirements could be produced. This amount of power is equal to the amount of hydropower produced in the United States, or equal to about 25 nuclear power plants. Similarly, the 2007 U.S. Energy Act recommends that “garbage” be used to replace edible foods such as corn to produce ethanol. It was estimated that waste could produce up to 30 percent of the 36 billion gallons of ethanol required by the year 2022.
6. It could produce the most renewable energy.
Plasma processing of municipal solid waste in the United States has the potential to create more renewable energy than the projected energy from solar, wind, landfill gas and geothermal energies combined.
7. It’s clean burning.
Because of the high temperatures, the low volume of gas emissions and the dissociation of organic compounds, gaseous emissions from plasma waste processes are much cleaner than from other kinds of gasification or incineration processes.
8. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
In landfills, garbage produces methane, a greenhouse gas. But if that garbage were sent to a plasma gasification facility, it would not have a chance to produce methane. What’s more, the energy generated could replace energy made at a coal-fired plant. In fact, for every ton of municipal solid waste sent to a plasma gasification facility for power production, 2 tons of CO2 emissions could be reduced from the atmosphere.
9. It gasifies more than garbage.
At least 15 companies in the United States and Canada are actively developing plasma gasification projects. In addition to municipal solid waste, the plants will process industrial waste, biomass, coal, coke and other carbonaceous materials. The plants will produce electricity as well as ethanol, methanol, diesel fuel, hydrogen and other syngas-based fuel products. Construction on some of these facilities is expected to begin in 2009.
10. It has a future.
Plasma gasification could play even more important roles in the fields of clean coal gasification, secondary oil recovery, and oil shale and tar sands recovery processes. Truly. Plasma gasification is an incipient environmental blockbuster, ready to leap ahead of current concepts of waste disposal, energy production and environmental cleanup.
Dr. Louis J. Circeo is a principal research scientist and director of plasma research at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He has been involved with plasma technology research since 1971, and holds five U.S. patents relating to plasma technology applications.
Plasma Gasification: Frequently Asked Questions
Some question and answers adapted from Westinghouse Plasma
What is the conversion output rate of Municipal Solid Waste?
The conversion of 1 ton of MSW is equal to producing approximately 1 barrel of oil,
What are environmental operational benefits of a plasma gasification facility?
Operation of a plasma gasification facility avoids:
- The release of methane that otherwise would be emitted when trash decomposes in landfills, as well as
- The displacement of CO2 that would have been emitted had electricity been generated from fossil fuels such as coal.
What are the advantages of a plasma gasification facility over incineration?
- Provides a new cost effective means of producing synthesis gas (syngas) to generate electricity and other forms of energy, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Incineration creates bottom ash and fly ash, which is considered a hazardous waste which requires additional treatment or disposal in special landfills. The high temperature of the plasma gasification converts all inorganic material to a molten slag which, after cooling, can be used as construction aggregate roadbed material.
What are the advantages of a plasma gasification facility over landfills?
- Can reclaim land by eliminating or minimizing landfills.
- Compared to landfills a plasma gasification facility has a smaller greenhouse gas footprint and harmful air emissions are virtually eliminated.
- Will eliminate the release of methane that would otherwise be emitted when trash decomposes in landfills. According to Environmental Canada, methane is estimated to have a global warming effect 23 times greater than carbon dioxide.
How does Plasma Gasification’s energy output compare to conventional conversion processes?
A further advantage of the plasma gasification process is its ability to unlock the greatest amount of energy from waste. As compared to landfill gas capture, (where facilities capture landfill methane emissions and combust the gas for energy), the power output from plasma gasification is close to four times greater.
Is plasma gasification only a great concept or is the technology ready to be deployed processing trash in the real world?
It’s ready to go. There are several 20-100 ton per day pilot implementations of gasification processes and the major vendors are now announcing the first wave of large scale waste to energy gasification projects. Here’s one example.
Who will fund, build and own these energy-producing facilities?
Manufacturing next generation biofuels created from household waste and biomass is an equal-opportunity opportunity!
National waste management companies such as Waste Management, Inc., Republic, and others will certainly play a major role in the development of gasification infrastructure. But for now, most of their energy investments are in very large scale incineration facilities, many of which actually lose money making electricity. In other words, they will likely be slower to roll out gasification than a more nimble startup with a focus on bioenergy production.
New businesses operating these gasification facilities will make money by extracting valuable energy commodities from previously worthless refuse. Significant opportunities exist for municipalities with adequate waste feedstock and biomass resources to partner with private sector investors to profitably process their municipal waste and excess biomass into bioenergy.
