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Trash talk: Are waste-to-energy plants a sustainable solution?
- aurizon 5y agoSimply burning is bad as it adds CO2 to the air = there are better ways.... They should use starved air combustion. (A known technology used for water gas etc)With this the waste is partially combusted and the organic balance turned into carbon and the metal is cleaned of paint/plastic and as it cools the brittle carbon portion can be sieved out, leaving various mixed metals(aluminum, zinc, steel copper for the most part) As it partially burns a wave of very hot oxygen free gas goes through the unburned waste by intention which will boil off hydrocarbons and'crack' the plastic down to assorted fractions that can be condensed and refined into assorted hydrocarbons = most of which can be used, the unused will be useable as asphalt adduct to save fresh asphalt. In any event this will tie it up as solid and the liquid fractions can be used in any modern refinery to increase the output. This reduces the power, but 80-85% of the carbon ends up in solid form. Some solid carbon may be useable in steel, or can be used as mine back fill. Mine back fill adds 1-2% cement which makes the mass solid. (the more cement you use = the more solid it gets). More solid is good in wet mine situations as there is ground water in wet mines and you want solid to block migration with ground water. In deep hard rock mines, water mobility is near zero. (In any particular mine used for carbon sequestration a detailed analysis of ground water should be done to assess the potential for migration and to use added cement to close this door). .