FlaSoxxJim Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 http://www.myhometownnews.net/index.php?id=21945 Hey, I'm as big an advocate of exploring new technologies for alternative fuel production and solid waste reduction as there is, but this proposed deal stinks to high heaven. The county I work in is about to sign on the line to let an Atlanta-based company named Geoplasma come in and build a plasma arc trash incineration facility that will supposedly be able to gasify 1,000 tons of trash per day from the get-go, and within 5 years they will be able to convert 3,000 tons a day. That is roughly 2x the total daily waste production of the entire county. It sounds too good to be true, and opf course that is exactly what I fear. The technology proposed is 100% unproven. Even the one plasma arc waste reduction facility operating in Japan uses substantially different technology, not to mention the operation is way smaller than the one being proposed here. In the linked news story you'll see there is only one rational person in the mix, a County Environmental Resource director named Vanessa Bessey who urges against approving the plan in the face of a complete lack of hard data supporting the science. It just seems completely strange that the county is on the verge of approving a never-proven technology to the tune of a 1,000 ton/day initial operation, without first asking the company to put together a pilot program that gasifies, say, 1 ton a day for a few months. Here's a 2006 WIRED story on the project, as well as a 2006 USA Today story. These stories point out the connection between Geoplasma and it's parent company Jacoby Development Inc. Just wrapping your brain around the enigma of Jim Jacoby and JDI is a chore, let alone adding the Geoplasma angle. I'm primarily interested in Balta's take on things since he's as close to an expert in a field like this that we have around here. But I'd also love to hear what others think about it. I'd LOVE for it to be a doable, viable thing, but I don't buy the suggestion that these guys will be able to work through all of the unseen scale-up hurdles and be able to build a project #1 of this capacity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 Honestly, this is a field I really can't say I'm an expert in, because I've never actually heard of this process. The principle seems sound, and they're correct that at those temperatures you're basically vaporizing anything organic and potentially dangerous, and if it has been employed at some scale in Japan, you'd think it would be applicable on larger scales as well. The one thing I do wonder about just offhand is the safety of the glassy, waste road-making material, because it's usually not just silicates that wind up in the trash, if someone throws out a calculator or something, you can get all of the trace elements that are used in the construction concentrated in there, and those are not the kind of things you want to introduce to the environment. I think this article (http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/editorials/article/0,,TCP_24460_5354745,00.html) seems to have the right idea...the risks to the county seem to be quite small and manageable, while the potential benefits could be large. The only obvious risk I can think of would be some sort of major accident, but I don't see why the risk of that would be greater here than at any other sort of industrial plant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 Take it out to sea and dump it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Prawn Posted March 1, 2007 Share Posted March 1, 2007 Or send it into outer space, wait, no. It might come back in 3000 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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