Power from gasified waste

[Stan Calow]

Andrew hit on the common problem with all energy production - no efficient way to store energy from when you can have peak production, to when you have peak demand.
Converting waste to energy is difficult partly because its not a continuous homogenous mixture of degradable stuff. Too much plastic, wood, metal and not enough carbon-based biomass. Like Kev says, it takes more energy to process it than you create.

Sorry for all the negatives - maybe you'll come up with a solution.

[andrew whicker]

One article I read mentioned that naturally decomposing dead stuff releases CO2 and CH4. Burning it releases only CO2. It's better, climate change wise, to burn it.

Gasification used to combat global warming seems to be net CO2 zero or at least adding less CO2 to the atmosphere for a given amount of energy than typical. Something about the feed stream needing to be 'bio mass' which I think is recently dead plant stuff, but not sure.


Anyway, none of it is going to be economical if we don't artificially raise the cost of energy. Washington state had a ballot initiative to add CO2 tax and failed. Big oil came in and scared residents. Claimed the economy would fall apart.

Dark times ahead when no US state even has a carbon tax after all the science we know.

In my opinion, if course.

I give money to offset my CO2 emissions when I travel via plane. I'd like to pay for my annual CO2 creation too after some simple calculations.

Lately I've been giving to a project that removes NOx from the exhaust of a fertilizer plant.

[Ole Anderson]

Capturing landfill generated methane is very common on large landfills. It is used to run large NG spark (not diesel) engines hooked to generators to generate electricity. Of course they don't last forever, the methane eventually runs out as the decomposition slows down. Drive by most any large active landfill and you will see a generating station.

[Bill Dufour]

The Nazi's even managed to run tanks on wood gas.

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww...anne-tanks.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas

[Andrew DiLorenzo]

A watt is one joule per second. There is the time aspect needed for your analyses, short of going into full dimensional analyses.