Plasma "Zappers" Turn Waste into Fuel

An innovative technique, devised by Geoplasma (GP), an Atlanta-based company, will be used to power up some 50,000 homes in Florida. The new technology could have been a part of a SF movie just a few years ago, as it incorporates plasma beams to vaporize the trash. But GP officials say that their new processing unit will be completed by 2011.
 

Basically, the power plant works by directing a stream of super-heated gases (plasma) at mounds of trash. The high temperatures vaporize the garbage, at very high pressures, which, in turn, spin a turbine hooked up to an electric generator. This process seems to be very cost-effective, according to the company. Predictions say that the costs of operating such technology will be roughly equivalent to those of generating current from natural gases.
 

A watt produced by vaporizing trash with plasma beams will have approximately the same costs as a watt produced from gas, as far as the end-user is concerned. The area of St. Lucie County, Florida, will benefit from the first, large-scale such plant in the United States. Throughout the world, pilot plasma converters already exist, as various studies aim to show that this is a viable option for recycling.
 

As a byproduct of this technological process, heavy metal elements, which do not vaporize, remain in pressure chambers and can later be used to pave roads or for heavy construction, when mixed with concrete and other heavy building materials.
 

On the "economic" side of things, cities such as New York could stop paying as much as $90 to get rid of a single ton of trash. Instead, plasma vaporizers could reduce these costs to some $15, seeing how electricity produced could be sold back into the grid. Furthermore, landfills throughout the country could remain in their current state, with no new trash being added, if this idea spreads.