Wood, Trash etc. converted to clean burning low or no emissions for fuel for electric power plants?

Question

We can put a man on the moon, send a misson to mars, was this real or a fake TV episode set up by our USA government?

So if we can do that here on earth why can we not figure out how to burn wood & trash to power our electic power plants CLEAN with little or no emmision ? Last time i heard somone say to a american that will not work we figured out how to do it?

Answer 1

Waste-To-Energy (WTE) plants are already a small source of power in various locations.  I've worked at a biomass plant east of Modesto, CA where we took trash wood products (house remodel, orchards, pallets, etc.) and burned them with little emissions.  500 to 800 tons per hour to put out 20 MW-hrs per day.  30 miles to the west of that plant was a genuine garbage burner http://www.covantaholding.com/site/stani... that takes 400 tons of waste per hour for 22.5 MW-hr/per pay

http://www.calbiomass.org/county.htm is a listing of wood burning biomass plants

Answer 2

I don't think the question is whether or not we can do it but rather how much are we willing to spend to do it.

Answer 3

We already do convert wood and trash into clean, green electricity.  And we do it on quite a large scale I might add.

http://www.wm.com/wm/services/waste-to-e...

Answer 4

It's a good way to get rid of waste but it isn't a replacement for other fuels because there isn't that much- very little gets wasted now.