[SustainableTompkins] Florida county plans to vaporize garbage

[Joel and Sarah Gagnon]

I looked at it. Conceivably the technology could burn the trash more 
completely, reducing particulate and dioxin emissions, but the metals would 
be vaporized more effectively too. There is a little bit of "lying with 
statistics" going on when they say that
"For the amount of energy produced, you get significantly less of certain 
pollutants like sulfur dioxide and particulate matter," said Rick Brandes, 
chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's waste minimization division.

The key phrase there is "For the amount of energy produced". If the process 
is more efficient, the same amount of pollution would be relatively less 
when expressed as a percentage of the energy produced. I don't see how you 
could avoid producing sulphur dioxide if you have sulphur in the fuel. 
Sulphur would need to be removed somehow either before or after combustion 
to produce an absolute reduction. I have to wonder if the biogas is 
scrubbed to clean it up before use, and if it isn't then are the metals 
somehow precipitated out in the gasification? Are they 
incorporated/encapsulated in the slag? Is the slag vitreous so encased 
heavy metals can't leach out when this stuff is used for fill? I'm guessing 
that the plasma arc technology is proprietary, so we are reduced to testing 
the products for safety. I hope the planners can see past the hype to 
protect the public safety.

Joel

At 06:28 AM 9/12/06 -0400, you wrote:
>Joey Gates recently called our attention to one of the scarier techology 
>fixes that are growing out of the sustainability movement. Here's another one.
>
>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060910/ap_on_sc/vaporizing_garbage
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