I saw on National Geographical about Garbage turned to energy???

Question

Why can't we do this all the time????? This will help everyone with the price of gasoline. Any thoughts appreciated.......??>>

Answer 1

lol.... we learn something every day!

Answer 2

There are a few installations which have separation sheds where the garbage of the day is culled for glass, metals, plastics,ceramics and other non-combustibles.( The garbage has no animal or vegetable matter).The plastics go for further recycling and converted to other home and building products.The remaining paper, cardboard, wood , fiber etc now feed the furnaces which will produce steam for heating and running generators which produce electricity. The waste gas from the distillation  of oil into fuel  is also being used  in the distillation or diverted to fuel a steam generating plant which also produces electricity. The gas was once sent through a system where it was burned. The old NJ refineries were a prime example of this waste, and one could see the flaming standpipes for miles..

Answer 3

the sad part is that every major landfill in the u.s. has methane stacks that come out of the ground and they burn it what a waste

thats soooo much energy wasted its crazy

Answer 4

A large portion of our waste is burned, but this produces some nasty emissions and there is still a need for landfills to put the portion of our waste that doesnt get burned.

Answer 5

with the Fischer-Tropsch process we can make ethanol from trash, sewage, AG waste, old tires. ect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tro...

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/arc...

http://www.hart-isee.com/index.php?page=...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/bu...

the best part is no more land fills or treated sewage water putting drug and chemical in our rivers.

plus about 75% of the hazardous waste in the US can be used as feed for this process.

Answer 6

It's all just to impress the press.

I do expect a "Best Answer" rating from you, for my quick response.

Answer 7

there are several methods of doing this.  I don't think I saw the Nat. Geographic one, but I've seen several others.

Sorting the trash is a major issue - it takes space and an expensive infrastructure to start up - and they are still improving the systems that separate metals, plastics etc.

One that I saw burned paper and petroleum products under high molten metal with added gases as needed to produce a synfuel.  The heated metal was produced by burning additional free products from waste.  (very expensive set-up - but effective - positive energy flow from waste.)

Another process didn't sort the trash and simply did what most landfills do today - vent off the methane - but instead of wasting it, they used it to power up some turbines and produce electricity - very efficient and this should be copied everywhere as far as I can tell.

Great topic - we need to think about our huge amounts of waste as a highly effective potential fuel source.

I don't see this as a replacement of gasoline directly, as I think the petro fuel vehicles need to be a thing of the past.  The methane fueled electric producing turbine could surely add to the electrical grid and electric vehicles won't be too far away if fuel prices stay high.