State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

,

Plasma Gasification: A Solution to the Waste Disposal Dilemma?

Waste not, Want not?

The source of this proverb is unknown, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say it wasn’t your average (modern) American. I say this because your average American runs through 56 tons of trash a year – including 500 plastic cups and 650 pounds of paper. If we were to start lining up all the garbage trucks that Americans fill in two years they would stretch from the earth to the moon! New York City alone produces enough trash each day to fill the Empire State Building.

Not only is the trash somewhat unsightly, it represents a problem from a climate perspective. The incineration and decomposition of solid waste (as occurs in landfills) produces greenhouse gases and threatens environmental stability.

A new technology called plasma gasification has the potential to “eat up” all this trash, leaving only energy and valuable materials (and producing no greenhouse gas emissions to boot). Too good to be true? Taiwan, Japan, England, and Canada don’t think so; they already have the technology up and running.

Where are we currently putting all of our municipal solid waste (technical for trash) if not in plasma plants? Well, the EPA calculated in 2005 that 32.1% of our waste is recovered by recycling procedures. However, this number does not include hazardous, industrial or construction waste – if it did, sources say the figure would be closer to 10%. The remaining 90% ends up either in landfills or incinerators.

Landfills (and their ugly cousins, dumps) are locations where trash is stored on and within a natural landscape. While dump are usually just holes in the ground where trash is buried, landfills use sophisticated methods of compacting, isolating, and maintaining trash deposits to maximize land use and minimize ecological damage. Landfill sites are carefully evaluated for their suitability (the composition of the underlying bedrock is a major concern) and must be meticulously sustained (for example, most landfills require a fresh, six inch covering of soil everyday). About 70% of US municipal waste ends up in landfills.

Bulldozer compacting solid waste at a landfill.
Bulldozer compacting solid waste at a landfill.

Despite careful planning and maintenance, landfills still emit large quantities of greenhouse gases. The anaerobic decomposition of solid waste releases methane and carbon dioxide roughly in equal parts. Landfills have consistently been the greatest man-made source of methane emissions over the past ten years (and second only to enteric fermentation). Although much of the methane can be reclaimed and put to use as a renewable, green energy source, and despite EPA encouragement, this has yet to be done on any large scale in the US.

Incinerators use combustion to reduce waste into ash, gas, and heat in a volume proportion of about nine to one. Incineration can handle types of waste deemed too dangerous to store in landfills, including biological and medical refuse. However, the (often toxic) ash produced by incineration and other thermal techniques must be landfilled as well, and in addition to emitting greenhouse gases, other emissions (such as dioxins) pose health and environmental risks. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), an international alliance of like-minded grassroot groups, points out that incinerators are usually located in poor and rural areas with little political influence – a violation of environmental justice.

New York City relies on a combination of incinerators and landfills to dispose of the daily 36,000 tons of trash generated. The majority of this total is contracted out to private industries – only 12,000 tons is handled by the Department of Sanitation. Since the closing of the Fresh Kills Landfill (a large landfill in Staten Island) in 2002, all the municipal waste now ends up in out-of-state locations, specifically in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina. Private contracts and transport costs carry a hefty price tag: $90 per ton of waste, a far cry from the average $35 that other states pay.

Work done by the Roosevelt Institution, a student-run think tank, here at Columbia highlights a new technology that appears to solve many – in particular New York City’s – waste disposal problems.

Plasma arc gasification is the next generation of thermal treatment techniques. By running a high voltage current through a pressurized, inert gas, tremendously high temperatures can be induced (up to 30,000 degree Fahrenheit – three times as hot as the surface of the sun) in an arc of plasma. This arc is capable of obliterating any type of waste – excluding some very rare, high-energy nuclear wastes – and converting them into elementary gases and an obsidian-like slag material. This process is highly exothermic so there is a surplus of energy produced; once the arc is initiated it “pays” for itself and then some.

The emissions from gasification, dubbed syngas, can be converted on-site into hydrogen and other valuable gases for sale. Startech, a leading developer of gasification technology, maintains that the combined sales of the power surplus and hydrogen production would allow plants to profit $15 from each ton of waste processed. This could help mitigate the $1.25 billion currently spent annually on the collection and disposal of the City’s trash (up from $658 million in 2000).

Plasma gasification plant operating in east Asia
Plasma gasification plant operating in east Asia.

Plasma gasification plants already exist in Taiwan, Japan, Canada, and England and there are plans for additional facilities. There are two contracts in place for plants in Florida and another is being considered for Los Angeles.

A plant that processes 2,000 tons of waste a day, roughly what a city of one million inhabitants produces daily, costs $250 million to construct. This can be prohibitively expensive for municipalities (particularly one as strapped as New York City’s) but, as Angela Wong and co-authors for the Roosevelt Institution note, in ten years of operation time the City would be able to make up for the cost of construction.

I contacted Joseph Longo, the charismatic CEO of Startech (also the inventor of the trash compactor), to ask what obstacles remain in the way of plasma gasification’s widespread acceptance. I hinted at the powerful waste disposal lobby and high construction overhead but he thought the issue was more general than that.

He wondered why any environmentally “enlightened” country would rely on incineration and trash dumps. Papua New Guinea doesn’t use them; what do they know that we don’t? Fortunately, things are changing, he says, albeit slowly. In the meantime, we’ll have to stick to proverbs.

Science for the Planet: In these short video explainers, discover how scientists and scholars across the Columbia Climate School are working to understand the effects of climate change and help solve the crisis.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
MANUEL SILVA
MANUEL SILVA
14 years ago

EL PROCEDIMIENTO INDICADO COMO PLASMA GASIFICATION ,ES EL MODO MAS SEGURO,TECNICO,EFICIENTE ,ECONOMICO QUE SE DEBE IMPLEMENTAR PARA EL TRATAMIENTO DE LOS RESIDUOS SOLIDOS,HE TRATADO DE REALIZAR ESTE SISTEMA EN LA CIUDAD DE QUITO ,PERO MUCHAS VECES LOS INTERESES ECONOMICOS DE LOS ALTOS FUNCIONARIOS ESTAN TOTALMENTE EN CONTRA DE LOS PROCEDIMIENTOS CIENTIFICOS Y RACIONALES;SOLICITO MAYOR CONTACTO CON MI PERSONA PARA PODER PENSAR EN CAMBIAR LA MENTE DE LAS AUTORIDADES Y DE ESTA MANERA EXTENDER LA VIDA SANA DE NUESTRO PLANETA.
FELICITACIONES .

CHIRCA RADU
CHIRCA RADU
14 years ago

Im very interested in this process who build it ?
And the most important think is it working?

Matthew Perry
14 years ago

I don’t know where you got your figures from, but the look VERY suspect.

Quote : Your average American runs through 56 tons of trash a year – including 500 plastic cups and 650 pounds of paper.

That is over 1 ton a week – or precisely 187 lbs per day !

Not very likely IMHO

James Travers
James Travers
14 years ago

Please, stick to Proverbs.

Why would Columbia University be involved in pushing, or should I say, foisting upon us such a wasteful technology?

In a world of diminishing finite resources, it is nothing less than criminal for you to do so.

It is obscenely irresponsible to say the average American wastes 56 tons of trash annually. Especially considering the average runs somewhere between 4.8 and 5.7 lbs per individual per day. That equates to at the highest rate barely over one ton per year per individual to about 3/4 Tpy per individual at best.

Landfill generated methane is caused by the organic wastes deposited there. Cease depositing organic waste in landfills and they will no longer generate methane. They all should be composted, especially when considering we’re exhausting the finite world supply of phosphorous, an ingredient essential to fertilizer.

This system, a linear system like all wasteful “thermal treatment” technologies, only serves to continue us moving down an unsustainable dead-end path.

Why don’t you begin working on a circular, or a closed loop system, one that creates as little waste as possible, conserves our finite resources and moves us closer towards a sustainable future?

Shame on you, Columbia!

asoghoian
asoghoian
Reply to  James Travers
14 years ago

Greetings! Thanks for the comment and your time. I will try to respond to all your points.

First of all: this blog post in no way represents Columbia University or the work being done by Columbia University or Earth Institute researchers.

The waste statistic that I cited was per capita. In other words, few people (I would hope) personally dispose of 56 tons of trash annually. However, if we collectively assume responsibility for our entire country’s waste (as I believe we should) it comes out to 56 tons. This metric thus assesses a collective waste level. I will edit the post to make this more clear though.

I agree with you that we’re moving down an unsustainable path. However, I have hope that new technologies –like plasma gasification– coupled with increased awareness and more responsible lifestyle choices are our ticket to a sustainable future. Although imperfect, plasma gasification is light-years ahead of landfilling or incinerating waste, which we unfortunately are conducting on massive scales.

A fully closed loop system would be ideal. In fact, plasma gasification is about as close to a “closed loop” cycle as we currently have available. The end products are useful elements, an apparently harmless slag material, and energy. The process is self-sustaining once it is initiated. For many small countries and large municipalities (like New York City) that have to export waste to far-off landfills, this technology could do much to mitigate the costs (both financial and environmental) of waste disposal.

Thank you again for your comments, and I hope I was able to adequately respond to the points you have raised.

Jym Bates
Jym Bates
14 years ago

Has anything been done with this technology? I’ve been researching it recently with expanding interest and I’ve been hearing such claims as a closed loop system, where the fuel created by the arc is also used to run a turbine for the arc as well as excess power. I figured this would violate the laws of thermodynamics. Second, I can’t seem to find any information that specifically states figures of power going into the arc, vs. power generated via the fuel created. It would seem the people who say they’re actually doing this aren’t being forthcoming with the data, but hearing the advertising, one gets the impression they’ve discovered something beyond perpetual motion. Can someone lead me to the hard data?

Ark Lemal
Ark Lemal
Reply to  Jym Bates
1 year ago

There is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics because there is continual input of the physical matter to be incinerated. All they are saying here is that the process is exothermic, so more energy is released from the physical matter than it takes to light it up, so as long as you keep feeding trash into the system, the system doesn’t cost you energy to run it. Maybe that extra hydrogen could be used to run the electric trucks that deliver in the trash to the plant.

UK loans
UK loans
13 years ago

I agree with you that we’re moving down an unsustainable path. However, I have hope that new technologies –like plasma gasification– coupled with increased awareness and more responsible lifestyle choices are our ticket to a sustainable future. Although imperfect, plasma gasification is light-years ahead of landfilling or incinerating waste, which we unfortunately are conducting on massive scales.

C. alford
C. alford
13 years ago

A plasma gasification system has become operational at Hurlburt Field, an AF Base in the Florida panhandle.
Visit http://www.pyrogenesis.com.

Mike Harlow
Mike Harlow
13 years ago

$250 million is a lot of money, but the existing plants serve large metropolitan regions. Is it possible for the technology to be employed at a smaller scale? How many people’s trash does the system need in order to ‘work’?

benjamin
benjamin
13 years ago

Do anybody knows anything about energy answers technology. Here in Puerto Rico they are trying to build a incineration plant based on their technology, any advice please let me know.

Tomas Adorno
Tomas Adorno
Reply to  benjamin
2 years ago

Trataron pero la junta de calidad la detuvo prefieten tener vertederos con methano que resolver el problema de ka basura con 7 de estas plantas se puede generar mas que sificiente energia para Puerto Rico y resolver el dilema de la basura y el costo de energia a la vez .

Peter hunt
Peter hunt
11 years ago

lasma gasification a process which converts organic matter into synthetic gas using plasma technologies. A plasma torch powered by an electric arc is used to ionize gas and catalyze organic matter into synthetic gas and solid waste It is used commercially as a form of waste treatment.

http://www.wastecontrolinternational.com

david
david
5 years ago

Thanks a lot for the useful information!