Vaporizing Garbage to Create Electricity

CaroKann writes "Geoplasma is planning to build a power plant in St. Lucie County, Florida that will generate electricity by vaporizing landfill trash and sewage treatment plant sludge with plasma arcs. It will be the first plant of its kind in the USA and the largest in the world. The power plant is expected to destroy 3000 tons of garbage, generating about 120 megawatts of electricity per day. The plant will also supply steam to a nearby Tropicana juice plant. The landfill is expected to be depleted in about 18 years. In addition, up to 600 tons of melted, hardened sludge will be produced each day and will be sold for road construction."

Re:Whence this vapor?

[Junior J. Junior III]

The summary also mentions processing 3000 tons of garbage a day, and yielding 600 tons of sludge. Unless they're converting mass directly into energy, a la nuclear fission, I'd say there's about 2400 tons of apparent gas that needs to be accounted for still.

a few issues

[faolan_devyn_aodfin]

this sounds like it has a lot of potential but I don't think poeple would be friendly to the idea the Tropicana juice plant would be recieving steam that was a biproduct of what the layman would essentally read as burnt trash.Even made me gag. But in all seriousness this sounds like a great idea and if all the biproducts are safe to use and this produces less pollution than fossil fuels then I am all for it. This may be the big break we need to to free our power plants from Big Oil--but the question reamins will Big Oil play fair and not try to have this programme regulated into oblivion with scare tatics? I hope not.

Energy that better AND cheaper. Amd as a Floridian I would welcome any power source to my state that would show promise of freeing ourselves from dependence on Big Oil at the municipal level.

The people of St. Lucie County won't go for it

[BeeBeard]

This will never get built. Let me explain: People near the Treasure Coast are retirees. And I don't mean in the "Oh, it's Florida...of COURSE there are retired people there" sense. I mean that many of its communities were planned and built specifically for bluehairs. Port St. Lucie, for example, is just such a community.

Now as impossible as it may seem, octogenarians are not really up on the newest technological advances. The moment you say the words "landfill trash" to these people, the NIMBY (not in my backyard) impulse will dominate, and granny and gramps will be making phone calls, changing zoning rules, voting down money, and generally just making Geoplasma's job as difficult as possible. They're retired. If you thought they didn't have the time or inclination to do these kinds of things, then you're mistaken.

I know it makes no logical sense to want to make use of modern garbage disposal technology, and yet not want it anywhere within a million miles of you, but trust me, that is the mentality. The article characterizes this as a county-wide effort. I bet not. I bet the people who are slated to have this trash burning marvel right next to them will soon be mad as hell in 3...2...1...

Re:Sounds like a great plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does... if we zap away our trash, then of course it's sustainable.

Re:It's a waste of valuable garbage

[gameforge]

I don't know anything about waste management, but if people care about recycling plastics, shouldn't they be doing that before they throw it in the trash? I think once it's in the landfill, it's "gone"; that means even if we wanted to, there's no way to harvest it out of a landfill that's remotely profitable. I mean, how much would they have to pay you to start digging through landfills for eight hours a day? And that's just the cost of mining the plastic out of the landfill.

People need to worry about recycling these materials (plastic, aluminum, paper, etc.) before they toss them into the trash. Many people (myself included) have signed up for seperate services for recycling stuff like this, and put out a recycling bin once a week with the trash.

Re:It's a waste of valuable garbage

[fm6]

Sure, and with today's fuel prices, it would cost us hardly anything!

Re:Whence this vapor?

[Skye16]

As would the oil/coal/natural gas power plant that was burning afore mentioned fossil fuels, as well.

If we require a amount of energy and produce x amount of CO2 and y amount of trash, but have a way to reduce y without drastically increasing x, then I don't see why this is such a bad thing. If the exhaust is scrubbed, and the CO2 is nearly the same, then we've taken one little step toward a cleaner world.

Ideally, there may come a time when our cars don't produce CO2, industry produces minimal amounts, and our power plants are primarily green as well. In that case, dumping *some* CO2 into the atmosphere while reducing the amount of landfill we need for garbage is one hell of a bargain.

Re:How many AOL CD's?

[iamhassi]

"So you'd need approx 96 AOL CDs per hour to run a 60W lightbulb. "

Wait... let me get this straight, someone explain this to me.

I pay money for them to pick up my trash right?

They take my trash, zap it into electricity.

I have to pay for electricity.

So, I'm basically paying to have my trash back? WTF? Why can't I just install a trash plasma zapper under the sink and skip the expensive middle-man? My trash + electricity a month is $200+, I'd love to keep the money in my pocket.

"Hunny, the A/C's not working!"
"Just throw some more AOL CDs at it!"

This is better than solar power if it works! Now bring on those electric cars :)

Re:Am I the only one who sees a disconnect here?

[Saven Marek]

Presumably they have 18 years worth of fuel from the past 28 years (1978 to 2006) worth of garbage dumping. Garbage dumping is still going to go on, so within the first 3 years of the project running there'll be another 2 years worth of running time for the plant.
 

In Mickey Mouse Land

[rahvin112]

I'm guessing the most optimistic person in the world wrote that. First they aren't generating much power, the waste steam is a huge maintenance hassle as steam pipes either need to be made of stainless steel or something else that isn't going to rust. Second, after building it they are going to discover that they need to spend millions every year on scrubbers just to keep themselves below the EPA limits on the pollution, heavy metals and other nasty stuff from getting into the air. After doing that they will find out that their garbage fees go up astronomically as a result of the number of shutdowns due to violating said EPA standards because half the residents are throwing away toxic materials in the trash (you can ask people not to throw mercury, batteries and toxic chemicals away but they will still do it) and as a result of the damage said materials do to the scrubbers, incinerator and geration systems. And finally they will be paying to dispose of the hazerdous sludge that contains the remainder of the heavy metals and other toxic chemicals (take two household chemicals toss in a plasma arc and what will you get? millions of cominations of nasty nasty substances that can't be predicted or accounted for) that weren't belched out of the smoke stack. And if they think for a minute any roadway designer or contractor is going to use that stuff without being mandated by law they need to lay off the crack.

The fact is that you don't build roads with materials that have unknown and extremely variable properties. 50 years ago they might have used the sludge in road construction (because they didn't know better) but not now, the chemical properties could be destructive/corrosive to the roadway, cause hazardous contamination in runoff and dust, and it could range from hard durable rock like material to a bad bit of clay. We don't build roads out of trash, unless someone is paying for you to take that trash, and it's a guaranteed uniform and chemically neutral substance, like glass. But this is what happens when you let the marketing department write your article.

Our county made the mistake of building an incinerator 20 years ago, it was the worst mistake they ever made and became the biggest money suction device that has kept the county broke for the length of the factility. I bet the total cost over 20 years not including interest was double the estimated price and it would have been cheaper to ship the garbage to China at the prices being paid per ton to incinerate the garbage.

Re:How many AOL CD's?

[Millenniumman]

Using "plasma arcs" to "vaporize" garbage sounds vaguely dangerous.

Re:Indeed

[c6gunner]

You'd be surprised. These plants exist in other parts of the world already, so it's a proven process. Toronto's been debating building one for a while (mainly for the garbage-disposal value since we now ship our trash to Michigan) but every time the environuts hear the word "incinerator", they get their collective panties in a collective bunch. Doesn't matter that the technology is proven, clean, and a damn sight better than wasting thousands of dollars and burning fossil fuels to ship our garbage to another country. Environutism has never been about being rational.

Re:How many AOL CD's?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of the power generating the plasma archs is derived from the energy released from the vaporized trash ?

Is this a cheap way to generate road sludge, or a new type of electric power plant ?

Depending on how much energy it takes to vaporize the trash, it might actually be cheaper to have it hauled away,
and then buy back the electricity, if the plasma generator doesn't use it all up first.

I didn't RTFA, I just needed to see the intraweb for a second between levels of the video game I am home alone playing on saturday night.

Tipping Fees

[sgent]

The tipping fees are not insignificant.

In our local (Southeastern US) landfill, the tipping fee is $10.51/ton. At 3,000 tons / day, your looking at an extra 960k/month in revenue.

Re:How many AOL CD's?

[IntelliTubbie]

I pay money for them to pick up my trash right?
They take my trash, zap it into electricity.
I have to pay for electricity.
So, I'm basically paying to have my trash back? WTF?

Wow ... you mean you'd have to pay for someone to haul away what you DON'T want and give you back something you DO want? I can't imagine why. :)

Cheers,
IT

Unit mismatch

[ari_j]

I can't fault you for this, because the story blurb got it wrong in the first place. You don't generate "megawatts per day." But assuming that the most sane disambiguation of the story blurb's numbers is correct (namely, that it burns 3,000 tons of garbage per day and generates 120 megawatts of power), it comes out to 96 AOL CDs per day to run a 60W bulb. Reducing the magnitudes a bit and simplifying, the story blurb claims 3,000 tons = 120 megawatt-days, or 6 pounds = 120 watt-days.

(96 AOL CDs / 1 day) x (0.5 oz. / 1 AOL CD) x (1 lb. / 16 oz.) x (120 watt-days / 6 lb.)

(96 x 0.5 x 120) / (16 x 6) watts = 60W

Re:Am I the only one who sees a disconnect here?

[evilviper]

Does this mean that during the last two years, St. Lucie County will be importing trash from other counties?

No, that means they'll finally START burning the trash that has been collecting in the 18 years since the plant began operations.

When they say the "entire landfill" ... "will be gone in 18 years", they don't mean it's going to explode, or turn into a black hole. Trash will keep piling up, though, interestingly, not as fast as the plant can dispose of it.

Perhaps that will mean the cost of dumping will drop, and more trash trucks will divert to that dump, instead of going elsewhere.

That is the situation in the Puente Hills landfill (L.A.) as dumping fees are cheaper than elsewhere, in-part because they siphon off the methane, and run a large power plant off of it.

We may well be entering the age of fewer, larger, regional landfills, all making money off of the trash they collect in one way or another.

Re:Whence this vapor?

[evilviper]

Sure, they scrub the exhaust for really harmful chemicals and particles, but they still release a lot of CO2.

But the wood, paper, cardboard, etc., is all carbon-neutral... only releasing the same CO2 that it trapped, a few years earlier, when the tree was growing.

Burning it to generate (needed) electricity is just another type of effective recycling, that happens to save landfill space as well.

Of course, it's not all going to be plant-based wastes, but it will still be significantly cleaner than fossil fuel power plants, in CO2 and other emissions.

Re:Indeed

[dbIII]

Meanwhile in the Phillipines they are phasing out incineration as quickly as they can due to problems with dioxins and other nasties being produced - so obviously those envionmentalists do have a few very good points. However with decent pollution controls like there is at the recent Japanese incinerators and nearly every coal burning power plant on earth you don't have to worry about anything other than CO2 and finding somewhere to dump the ash - which may be acidic but that's a lot better than breathing stuff in or acid rain. Good luck convincing people some though - the nuclear industry has spent years and a lot of money spreading the story that burning stuff throws vast quanities of radioactive waste up in the air to get into the lungs of children. But yes - well run incinerators take vast quantities of waste in Japan.

As for shipping garbage to another country - how irresponsible can policies get? The events this week with very toxic waste deliberately dumped in Ivory Coast will make a lot of people think about the implications of accepting shipped garbage. Politicians who would normaly boil their own grandmothers in creosote for advantage will notice how a govenment lost power very rapidly over a toxic waste spill and will take some notice of toxic waste policies.

Re:Indeed

[GeffDE]

You can tip your hat to American ingenuity as long as you know that, as Tom Lehrer [wikipedia.org] once said, "good old American Know-how" is "provided by good old Americans by Dr. Werner Von Braun." Honestly, these sorts of things have been used in Europe (of all Communist, apple-pie hating places) for decades. So while your hat is tipped, you might as well give a small bow to the Europeans.

Re:Attempted before...unsuccessfully

[jwiegley]

What???!!! I vote not to subsidize this. In fact I vote to abolish all other current government subsidies. I vote that I will take care of myself and my own trash on my own dime by providing equivalent value to others and that everybody else should do the same thing!

See, the problem with government and the current public is that there exist people who think "Oh, the government will pay for it", when in fact a government has no money to pay for anything. What you really meant to say was:

The cost-effectiveness still concerns me, but [forcibly taking money from everybody] can take care of that.

I'm already forced to put up with this nonsense for protection, healthcare, wages, food costs, transportation, housing and education as well as stupid and/or lazy people. Let's start by not adding trash management to it as well (though I'm pretty certain it already has been.)

Re:Byproducts

[smellsofbikes]

If you heat things up enough, you'll break down even dioxin. All you need to do is dump in enough energy to start breaking the (fairly stable) molecular bonds. This [websorcerer.com] is what dioxin looks like. A chemist can tell you why it's so stable: lots and lots of alternating single/double bonds. quick chem lesson: lines drawn between atoms, in this case the angles on the outside of the structure, representing a carbon atom at each angle, are single bonds, drawn C-C-C (or in this case /\) while double bonds are drawn as two lines: C-C=C. Something with alternating bonds, C-C=C-C=C, acts as if it has about 1.5 bonds between each, which is tremendously stabilizing. Benzene is a ring of six carbons, with six single and three double bonds: alternating single/double bonds, so it's drawn as a hexagon with a circle in the center, to symbolize its electron structure. This has two benzenes, with oxygens connecting them. Because the oxygens have electron pairs that are unused in bonding, but are in the right place, they can act as, essentially, parts of double bonds, meaning the center section is also alternating single/double bonds -- or, more correctly, the whole works has evenly distributed electron density. Whew. here is some more stuff [chemguide.co.uk] about aromatics and the stability of benzene.
The bond energy of carbon-carbon bonds in benzene is about 200 kJ/mol (as I recall: I may be wrong); dioxin is (I think) going to take more energy to break. But at any given bond energy, a given temperature with large excess of oxygen, over a given time, will break a certain percentage of the dioxins down into smaller (and quickly oxidized) byproducts, so all you have to do is establish what's a reasonable level of dioxin to release into the atmosphere (which a person could justifiably argue is "zero, dammit!") and make sure your flame temperature is high enough that you transfer more energy than that threshhold to the exhaust stream. The temperature of flames is really spectacularly high -- the free air temp of burning oxygen and hydrogen is something like 5500 degrees F -- but you have to guarantee that the mass of the exhaust actually gets that hot, so you have to care about heat transfer, not just temperature. In any case: this is well-known chemistry. It is possible to burn dioxins and destroy 99% (or 99.9% or whatever you've decided is 'enough') of them.

The sulfur would become sulfur dioxide, which would be captured in scrubbers, the way they do in steel plants and coal-fired power plants. They use the captured material to make sulfuric acid, and sell it at a major profit, even considering the initial cost of installing the scrubbers.

That's probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know, but I like chemistry.