Why pay some big company huge amounts of money to haul away your trash when you can turn it into free energy? IST Energy has figured out a way to fit a trash-gassification power plant into a unit the size of a large dumpster, and they're looking to sell it to hospitals, office parks and universities.
The process is fairly clean, because it gassifies the trash and combusts the gas instead of combusting the trash itself. Of course, the plant would still produce carbon-dioxide, but it wouldn't produce the pollutants that many trash-burning facilities currently produce.
Universities and office parks can pay as much as $200,000 per year just for trash removal. Once that's added to the potential energy savings, IST's energy units start to look pretty cheap, even with an $850,000 price tag.
Unfortunately, trash has to be sorted before it can be put into the system, however. Metal and glass don't contain energy like organics do, so they must be removed and recycled separately. But almost everything else you can think of can be gassified and used to create energy.
Filling the unit with the maximum three tons of trash will produce about 120 kW of energy, and about twice that in heat. That power and heat is enough to power about 15% of the trash-producing building's energy needs.
Of course, it's never good to produce more trash, even if it is going to be used. In the end we're still burning trees (paper), other plants (food) and oil (plastic products.) But this is certainly a better use for this waste than having it sit in a landfill producing methane for the next thousand years.
Via CNet GreenTech
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written by JScot, January 20, 2009
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written by andrew, January 21, 2009
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written by Tom, January 21, 2009
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written by Raz, January 21, 2009
paper = recyclable
organics = compostable
paper towels, etc = compostable
glass/metal/plastic = recyclable
batteries = recyclable
ink cartridges = recyclable
light bulbs = recyclable
I suppose not every city has weekly compost removal & if your lazy not to put ink cartridges, light bulbs, eye glasses, cell phones, and batteries in special boxes at home depot, a university, or something like that, then it would go in the garbage. But if you are a if company that could afford a trash generator, you would be able to organize a compost pickup and specialized recycling boxes.
Ever since weekly compost pickup, we produce virtually no garbage. It is amazing how much is recyclable / compostable.
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written by Dan, January 21, 2009
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written by segagman, January 21, 2009
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written by Yamaha Dirt Bikes, January 22, 2009
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written by eh, January 22, 2009
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written by Ed, January 28, 2009
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written by Tom Simpson, January 28, 2009
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written by Lamson Nguyen, January 28, 2009
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage
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written by Richard Davine, January 28, 2009
Burning resources, or their gases, is a waste of a reusable thing. I think this idea, applied to a public toilet, with an adapted IST unit emptying into the sewer when full, would be shit hot.
;^}
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written by Steve Fernandez, January 31, 2009
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written by Kevin, February 05, 2009
That said, I'm always cringing when you call kW a unit of energy. A kW is 1000 Watts POWER. A Watt is a Joule/second. A Joule is a unit of energy. Power*time = energy. So kWh is energy as well (NOT kW/h). Please spend some time on Wikipedia learning some engineering fundamentals. I see this in a lot of articles, and otherwise you seem to know your shit.
Thanks.
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written by ORGANIC WASTE CONVERTER, February 25, 2012
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