Plasma Trash

Non-music discussion. Discuss things that are on your mind or things that don't have anything to do with music. Lets try to keep it clean people, there are little children present.

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Garr
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Plasma Trash

Post by Garr »

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02 ... plasma.php

It would be nice to have some unbiased corroboration to this. If it's true, that's pretty bad ass, you know?

Here's a snippet:

Popular Science reports that companies like Startech are blasting trash with plasma and producing clean fuels like hydrogen as a byproduct. Basically, you put tons of trash in one end of a plasma converter, and a superheated plasma arc obliterates the trash into its molecular components. The process is called "plasma gasification". There are two byproducts: one is a "syngas" composed mostly of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be converted into fuel. The other is molten glass that can be sold for use in household tiles or road asphalt. Amazingly, plasma converters produce enough energy to power themselves, and actually produce an excess of energy that can be sold to the grid. Still, some environmental scientists have warned that the residual substances may contain toxic heavy metals.
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bwohlgemuth
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Post by bwohlgemuth »

They need to scale their prototype a bit before I buy into it.

I have a feeling the "gases" are going to be more of a byproduct than what they say and the conversion to "syngas" is not as cut and dry as people would like. I am not a chemist, but I know the formuals and the energies involved are out there somewhere.

That being said, would love to have on in my home. Never have to take the trash out again. ;-)
Garr
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Post by Garr »

ditto
There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand binary. . .

. . .and those who don't.

[url]http://www.garrmusic.com[/url]

Check out these sites:

[url=http://www.OhSoHumorous.com]OhSoHumorous.com[/url]
[url=http://www.TopDailyMemes.com]TopDailyMemes.com[/url]
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Post by Krieves »

I think I'll keep putting my garbage in neighbor's dumpsters. That way, I never have to wheel my dumpster to the curb and makes everyone wonder why we never have any garbage on pickup day.

If anyone asks why I never have any garbage, I'll just wink and tell them we recycle everything into home furnishings. :)
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Post by Grindspine »

a) info taken from "treehugger.com"

b) "creates excess energy"... one of the laws of thermodynamics is that entropy increases. In other words, any time energy is used, some is lost as heat. Therefore, it takes more energy put into a system than the system yields in usable energy (the rest is not destroyed, but unusable because it has become heat).

The whole "hydrogen as a fuel" thing is a farse simply because it would take more energy to create the hydrogen to use as fuel than the fuel itself would yield.

Interesting post, but untrue based on my previous knowledge.
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Post by cwallace »

I was watching Discovery the other night that had a segment in the show about 'super heating' (I don't know what method they used to do it) plastics and other petroleum based car parts (after all metal was stripped) and turning it back into usable fuel...

Might be along the same lines as that...

There are so many alternative to fuel out there...we just need to start using them. Future car was showing some BADASS electric cars that had very fast top speeds, good pickup and acceleration, and got 250-300 miles on a $5 charge...

The cars are expensive, but that is because they built ONE...

All of the methods to generate 'reclaimed' gas and fuel are growing in popularity...

Chris
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Post by bwohlgemuth »

Grindspine wrote:The whole "hydrogen as a fuel" thing is a farse simply because it would take more energy to create the hydrogen to use as fuel than the fuel itself would yield.
The "hydrogen" economy is a joke. Hydrogen really really really wants to bond with something (think of that one clingy girl who will do anything for atention). This is why the vast majority of hydrogen on Earth is ties up in water and organic molecules.

This unit "could" power itself, but it would have to use the electrical grid to get started. There is no way a normal battery is going to generate the sufficient punch to start a self-sustaining plasma.

Again, scale is everything. It's nice to see, but I don't see how "zero CO2" is a possibility. Even if it ran in a pure nitrogen environment, oxygen would still be released and the carbon would go a-runnin to bond with the atomic oxygen as CO2.

Then again...anthropogenic global warming is a joke.
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Post by bwohlgemuth »

cwallace wrote:There are so many alternative to fuel out there...we just need to start using them. Future car was showing some BADASS electric cars that had very fast top speeds, good pickup and acceleration, and got 250-300 miles on a $5 charge...
Good electric cars are on the horizon. Problem is the charging time. If they can get it under 10 minutes, it's definitely possible. I fully expect my next new vehicle to be 100% electric (or like the Volt, an electric car with a small generator).

Problem is, we need more electrical generating capacity. Unless someone loosens up Greenpeace, the new plants are going to be coal/oil and not what they need to be (NUCLEAR!)
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Post by Grindspine »

Problem with nuclear power is that the most efficient breeder reactors are also the ones that produce weapons grade materials.

Thus, those type of nuclear plants are not really that popular for use (unfortunately).

And people are always afraid that nuclear plants create three eyed fish.

I will admit that solar power is not an option in Indiana. I mean, we only get sunlight a few months out of the friggin' year.
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Post by =^-..-^= »

Grindspine wrote:
I will admit that solar power is not an option in Indiana. I mean, we only get sunlight a few months out of the friggin' year.
A few MONTHS? What part of freakin' Indiana do you live in? I wanna' move there. ;-)

That scary firey ball in the sky scares me when it chooses to appear a couple times a year.
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