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Plasma Gasification The Wave of the Future

By Mike Gippert Director

Forest Park Public Works Department

•  “Fourth State” of matter

•  Ionized gas at high temperature capable of conducting electrical current

•  Lightning is an example from nature

What is PLASMA?

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History of Plasma Gasification Convertors

Remember the scene in “Back to The Future” where Doc Brown throws garbage into his time travel vehicle for fuel. I think he referred to it as the Flux Capacitor. While this scale is still in the realm of science fiction, we may be a lot closer than one would think to generating electricity for our homes using trash, and plasma waste convertors will do the job!

Originally developed for NASA and The Space Program in the 1960’s. Dr. Louis Circeo, Director of Plasma Research at the Georgia Tech Research Institute has dedicated a career to bring the technology to the fore front of sustainability through renewable energy sources.

Plasma Converter

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Characteristics of Plasma Arc Technology

•  Temperatures to 10,000°f

•  Torch operates with most gases – Air most common

•  A gasification process – Not an incineration

process

Plasma Gasification Process

•  Has been used in Europe, Norway, Japan, and Canada for many years to dispose of MSW with great success.

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Plasma Arc Technology for Municipal Solid Waste Destruction

•  Hazardous & toxic compounds are broken down to elemental constituents by high temperatures

•  Organic materials – Gasified – Converted to fuel gases (H2 & CO)

•  Residual materials are immobilized in a rock-like mass which is highly resistant to leaching

Ultimate MSW Disposal System Requirements

•  Accept all solid and liquid wastes

•  Closed loop system

– No direct gaseous emissions to the atmosphere

– No landfill requirements

•  Total waste reclamation

– Recover fuel value of wastes

– Produce salable residues (e.g., metals and aggregates)

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Municipal (household), Commercial, medical and most industrial and hazardous waste can be turned into clean renewable products, such as ethanol, methanol, syngas; Hydrogen and diesel fuel with minimal environmental impact.

The Plasma Technology of Today can Take:

Plasma

Gasification

Model

How It Works..

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ST Lucie County, Florida Ron Roberts, Solid Waste Division Director Solid Waste Bailing & Recycling Facility

6120 Glades Cutoff Road Fort Pierce, Florida 34981 Phone 772-462-1631

•  Installation of 600TPD Plasma Gasification unit by GEOPLASMA

•  Ground breaking September 1, 2011 operational around November 2012

ST. Lucie County Florida Will be the 1st major Plasma Gasification System in the US

for MSW.

•  Eglin AFB,FLorida has a system that treats 50 to 75 TPD of MSW per day, Hazardous and Medical Wastes.

•  Has been open for 2 years

Sunshine Pkwy.

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Gas

St. Lucie County, Florida Model Based on 600 TPD of MSW

Steam

Syngas

MSW

Power to Plasma Plant 18 MWs

Power to Electric Grid 60 MWs

Electric Generator

Gas Turbine

Gas Cleaning

Steam Powered Electric Generator

Steam Heat Exchangers

Heat

Power Grid

Exceeds EPA’s standards for comparable facilities in all areas including: Air emissions, water discharges, and solid waste generation and comes closer to 100% recycling of waste than any other commercially available technology

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In the past the gasification has been unable to compete economically with traditional municipal waste processing, but maturing technology has been coming down in cost while energy prices have been on the rise.

Now “the curves are finally crossing- Its becoming cheaper to take the trash to a plasma plant than it is to dump it in a landfill!”

•  “EPA has estimated that if all the municipal solid waste in the US were processed with plasma to make electricity we could produce between 5 and 8 percent of our total electricity needs-Equivalent to 25 nuclear power plants or all of our current hydropower output”

•  With the US expected to generate a million tons of garbage everyday by 2020, using plasma to reclaim some of that energy could be too important to pass up

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Summary Plasma processing of MSW in the U.S. can:

– Significantly reduce the MSW disposal problem

– Reduce the need for landfills – Eliminate ground water contamination

possibilities, reduce greenhouse gas generation.

Plasma Gasification

•  A City, County, or District that opps for Plasma Technology to process their waste stream would become:

100% “0” Waste &

100% Recycle