Comments on: Plasma Arc Gasification: turning garbage into gas

By: earthanet

earthanet — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:20:12 +0000

@jessinwis–yes, this process reduces trash to atoms, so any toxins would have their molecules blasted into particles. It’s like putting our trash on a spaceship and shooting it into the sun–except that we get to keep and use the energy.

I’m working on a series of posts about investment in cutting edge technology, particularly syngas processes (of which plasma arc gasification is one). Currently these companies are mostly funded by private equity, but a lot of things are going to change in the next few years, and I see some great opportunities for investors to get in on the ground floor.

By: jessinwis

jessinwis — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:25:30 +0000

What interests me about this technology is that I believe it can neutralize the prions that cause mad cow–obliterate them, which other sterilization methods can’t do. It can also neutralize toxins, like river sediment contaminated with PCBs. And if there’s any hope of cleaning up landfills and preventing them from leaching and contaminating water sources, I’m all for this technology. Anyone know of a way to invest? I am fired up about this technology.

By: tellysixt3

tellysixt3 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:39:20 +0000

I believe this is a technology that will help relieve us from landfills and incinerators that are wasteful and produce a plume that not only smells but in some cases are high in emissions.
I also researched the “closing” of the German facility (I live here) and all indications point to a political reason/background due to already vested waste companies and state politicians being removed from a very lucrative business.
I might also add that the Germans recycle up to 90% but don’t re-use all that recycled material and the rest ends up being burned or in landfills.
The city of Ottawa just moved forward with a 400 tonne-per-day facility (by Plascoenergy) after running a test 100 per-day that produced great results. Port Moody is also working with the company on a due diligence for the same system.
With energy prices climbing and landfills becoming scarce, this system (which can also use sludge from water treatment plants, hazardous materials, tires, almost any waste) can elliminate the waste, produce electricity and keep emissions low enough to be competitive if not better that what we have in use today.
In third world countries were modifying behavior will take years, and electricity and clean air are scarce (due to open trash burning) this would be an excellent investment.
We need a combination of solutions for waste and clean energy generation and in the developed world this could be one more piece of the puzzle.

By: earthanet

earthanet — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:22:06 +0000

As an example of using less, Ireland just outlawed those godawful plastic film bags that this country uses about a billion a year of, after three or four years of slapping a mandatory .33c price tag on each one you take home from the store, just to warm people up to the idea of bringing their own canvas bags when they go shopping.

All the plastic we use for packaging purposes is about to get very expensive, as it should be. The way I look at PAG is just one of the many ways in which we need to become energy misers. First we reduce the waste stream by conserving raw materials and reusing when possible. The waste that can be conventionally recycled gets recycled. Finally, the stuff we can’t take care of in one of the two above ways gets atomized with PAG.

Of course, in real life, the process won’t happen all at once–it’ll go where the money is first. Some leadership from government to guide it in the right direction regardless of profit potential would be a good thing.

By: bobdurivage

bobdurivage — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:18:11 +0000

We don’t have to dramatically change people’s behaviour to reduce our environmental impact. People are separating their trash now for recycling- not demolecularizing, but recycling. They seem to be handling the change fairly well. There is no reason we can’t make it easier to recycle by reducing product packaging. Products sold today have more packaging than product. Gassification might work out well for clean energy and safe building material, but we will always need material to make minimal packaging.
We have to get away from using raw materials as they are becoming less available(and more expensive).
PAG sounds good, but even that cannot compare to emission-free wind and solar energy.
Building material, eh? Hmmm.