Converts any waste you can find in a garbage dump into Electricity, Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide, and Slag that can be used in pavement and random things.

Once the reaction gets started it powers itself and even produces more electricity than the reaction needs.

The fuel is human waste.

Quote :

"New york spends 90 dollars per ton of waste to transport store and manage its waste. This process would earn the city 15 dollars per ton of waste. The only thing left after the reaction is complete is .02% of the original weight in material."

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Ok, I'm sorry, but this is insane. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! Imagine the possibilities. It produces hydrogen to power any hydroden powered vehicle including the trucks needed to gather the material

This all from the discovery science channel. And well, from a popular science magazine I read 7 months ago. If I new what company is developing this, I would invest. And yes, they do have a working facility.

[Edited on December 3, 2007 at 8:06 PM. Reason : dsd]

12/3/2007 8:05:31 PM

This shit (pun intended) is old. The problem is that these technologies do not scale well, and the companies frequently underestimate the costs involved. Human waste handling and disposal has a lot of hidden costs. You can't just throw that shit right into a plasmagasifier.

12/3/2007 8:09:53 PM

How much energy does it require to produce energy? Is this payoff more than other alternatives?

12/3/2007 8:29:42 PM

as long as it produces enough energy to power and pay for itself its gold

transportation is a big deal for this stuff too

12/3/2007 8:49:28 PM

Quote :

"If I newold what company is developing this, I would invest. And yes, they do have a working facility. "

12/3/2007 8:59:33 PM

This thread was done, I think maybe in The Lounge, sometime in the past 6 months I believe.

^ Can someone please suspend this guy, that's pretty much unnecessary.

12/3/2007 9:52:01 PM

OK, so what're the immediate problems with it? If the process was as rosy as you paint it, everyone would be doing it, or at least talking about it. What you've described would be a magic bullet to fix the solid waste issue.

12/3/2007 10:15:01 PM

Would it work with nonhuman waste? For example, those massive pig waste lagoons we have sitting out in the eastern part of the state? I'm also a bit concerned about the entire carbon monoxide bit.

Oh, found this bit from Wikipedia. Apparently Honolulu considered using this technology but decided against it after further study.

http://www.honolulu.gov/refs/csd/publiccom/honnews04/plasmaarcrecommendations.htm

Quote :

" Advocates of plasma arc/torch promised comparable or lower costs than H-POWER, increased environmental benefits and a facility that could process everything with no residue to the landfill – making the need for landfilling obsolete. The information gathered in the RFP (request for proposals) process did not support those claims... There were no environmental advantages related to lower emissions or higher energy production – air emissions and energy production would be similar to WTE."

Still a lot of potential, but plenty to consider.

[Edited on December 3, 2007 at 10:28 PM. Reason : Added Honolulu data.]

12/3/2007 10:23:19 PM

^^ I think it is like a lot of these things, investors want to see a large scale version of it to see if the theoretical numbers can be proven, inventors of it need lots of investment to build the large scale version of it to prove their theoretical numbers. Repeat.

12/3/2007 10:29:12 PM