Garbage into Fuel - Good News to Report?

[Rose Caplan]

Don't recall this being discussed on any news channel...wouldn't this be good news to report?

A must for every city in the United States...especially if "economy of scales" factors in. Great use of technology : Landfill Creates Fuel for Garbage Trucks : Running Garbage Trucks on Garbage : According to Greenapolis TV interview this can fuel up to 300 vehicles a day! And the project was brought in on budget!
Greenapolis TV YouTube Video Landfill Creates Fuel for Garbage Trucksl

Evidently there is quite a bit of this going on since beginning of year. So much so that the EPA has its own newsletter entitled Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP)http://www.epa.gov/landfill/news/index.htm and projects listed at http://www.epa.gov/lmop/proj/prof/index.htm

[Karl Martin]

Rose,

It's good to see more municipalities finding better ways of dealing with landfill waste. Using methane from decomposing garbage to run trucks transporting the waste seems to make sense but I'm wondering if it might be a short term fix for a much bigger problem. The bigger problem is the amount of garbage that doesn’t break down and remains in landfills for many years.

Personally I’d like to see more research and money invested in plasma gasification. From what I’ve read, it would eliminate most of the landfill garbage completely while producing syngas (synthetic gas) and heat, to run generators and create electricity to power homes in the community.

I’m not sure if the initial investment to build this type of plant is too high at this point, which may be why more cities haven’t looked into it. The technology is out there and it is a very clean form of producing energy, with the only waste being a glass like “slag” which can be used in road and highway construction.

Anyway if you’re interested, the following link will bring you to the Westinghouse website. There’s a fairly interesting video on the home page:

http://www.westinghouse-plasma.com/technology_solutions/what_is_pla...

[Rose Caplan]

Thank you for this Karl. I would love to see these technologies discussed on the news so we can see progress that is being made instead of being told on a constant basis that "the sky is falling!" Do you think it's ok if I post the video on the Greenapolis TV website?

[Karl Martin]

Hi Rose,

First off, thanks for sending a friend request (which I've gladly accepted).

As far as using the video on Greenapolis TV, I would recommend contacting WH by email (there's an email address on their "contact us" page). I'm sure they would have no problem with allowing permission since it would be additional advertising for them, but because it's dealing with copyright material, it's probably best to get their approval.

[Rose Caplan]

Thanks Karl!