A Waste Gasification Plant In a Truck 148
waderoush writes "There are plenty of waste-to-energy plants around the US, but most of them simply burn the waste, dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Gasification technology, by contrast, converts nearly all of the waste into gases like hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be used to run generators and furnaces. The problem is that most gasification facilities are factory-sized. Now a startup outside Boston has built a combination shredder-dryer-pelletizer-gasifier that fits into 30-by-8-by-8-foot shipping container. The so-called 'Green Energy Machine' can be backed up to a loading dock by truck, processing 3 tons of solid waste per day and putting out enough synthetic gas to run a 120-kilowatt generator or a 240-kilowatt-equivalent furnace. The makers say the machine can eliminate 540 tons of carbon emissions per year, in large part by reducing the amount of waste that goes to methane-generating landfills."
I have that beat: (Score:4, Informative)
You obviously never went on a high school trip with teenagers in a van eating pumpkin seeds. That was the highest efficiency matter to gas conversion I've ever seen.
Re:Thinking Creativly About Energy (Score:4, Informative)
carbon monoxide is toxic (Score:3, Informative)
The pellets are dropped into the aforementioned downdraft gasifier, which breaks them down under high heat into a mix of methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Finally, this "syngas" is sucked into a generator or microturbine to make electricity, or piped to a furnace to make heat.
The summary has the idea that carbon monoxide is NOT an green house gas. While, this might be true the gas is then burned which should result in carbon dioxide. Tim S
Re:Thinking Creativly About Energy (Score:4, Informative)
rural folks in india have been doing that since forever.
Yeah, there are definitly gasifiers that are smaller than the 'factory size' that the summary claims. Germany, for example, had many cars running gasifiers during world war 2, since they were short on oil.
There are also DIY projects that have build cars like that:
A Honda Accord that runs on Trash [treehugger.com]
A converted pickup truck [laughingsquid.com]
Needs "Marty!" tag (Score:2, Informative)
But can it power a flux capacitor?
Re:Carbon Monoxide? (Score:5, Informative)
Then you will be pleased to discover that carbon monoxide is not only an ubiquitous industrial chemical used for more things than you are likely to imagine, but that it has been used as automotive fuel in times past, a bit like how compressed natural gas is used in some vehicles today. Yes it is toxic, but then so are most industrial chemicals and commonly used gases. This is actually pretty retro fuel technology, used when petroleum distillates were in short supply since you can produce it from damn near any organic matter (wood waste was a popular source). It says something about educational systems that you do not know that carbon monoxide has a long history as a fuel, since that was its primary application for a long time, usually by converting a carbon rich source into "water gas", a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. We have long since replaced water gas with natural gas and short-chain hydrocarbon gases from mined sources, which is far more cost effective in bulk.
I am not really directing this at you, but we need to get past the "gosh, it might be toxic!" over-reaction to some really basic chemistry. We have used "water gas" and carbon monoxide systems for a very long time as chemistry goes, and long before anyone really properly characterized its asphyxiating properties. If they could use it in the 19th century without killing everybody, then we can certainly use it in the 21st century without killing everybody. There is more truly nasty chemistry waiting to happen in your average household than any normal person likely imagines, and yet we somehow survive as a society.
Chemical toxicity is becoming like "nuclear" and "radioactive", bogeymen perceived as ineffable evils that will kill us all. It betrays a deep disconnect with the reality of the situation that, if allowed to drive political decisions, really will kill us all even if indirectly in a carefully designed hypo-allergenic padded cell. Fortunately, biology evolved in environments filled with radioactive, toxic crap, and is pretty good at mitigating the damage except in the most extreme cases that only a human could engineer. Yes, carbon monoxide is toxic, but it is also easily managed with some fairly primitive engineering.
Re:For reference: (Score:1, Informative)
Hmmm... 1hp =3/4 kw is what you were looking for. Unless this is the famed mosb1000 system of units...
Re:Always something to forget about... (Score:2, Informative)
Sulphur dioxide dissolves in water to form sulphuric acid. Nitrogen oxides dissolve to form nitric acid.
Please keep those cattle farming by-products to yourself.
"removed"? (Score:2, Informative)
You do realize that reformers turn the carbon into CO2 right?
Re:The solution is a distributed architecture (Score:5, Informative)
It does redcue greenhouse gases (Score:4, Informative)
The system burns methane that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere. Methane has a much higher greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, because it absorbs more infrared radiation, therefore converting methane to CO2 has a positive effect in reducing global warming, even if the total carbon amount released is the same.