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The Engineering of Landfills

practical.engineering

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Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#201

Post by louwrentius »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #149
louwrentius wrote: post #30

The video was informative for somebody that knows nothing about landfills. The topic not addressed however, is the insanity of all this waste being produced in the first place.

The waste is a consequence of all the good things we produce that enrich our lives. You may or may not find value in these items, but many others do. The insanity is to look only at the “cons” side of the page, and not at the “pros” side, and to judge others for not sharing your values.

Oh, it’s insane to question or be critical of those waste-producing activities, yeah sure.

I think this attitude and choice of words shows such an agressive disregard for other views and opinions, it feels pathological

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#202

Post by hatthew »

renewiltord wrote: post #158
bko wrote: post #2

I found this interesting: > Another option is to put it to beneficial use to create heat or even electricity. The Puente Hills landfill I showed earlier has a gas-to-energy facility that’s been running since 1987, and even though the landfill is now closed, it currently provides enough electricity to power around 70,000 homes. And towards the end > Landfills seem like an environmental blight, but really, properly des…

Environmentalists in the US are against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy. They are against high-rise buildings and pro-golf-courses. They can be safely ignored since their stated goals and their actions can only be concordant if one assumes they're idiots or enemies.

The average environmentalist I am familiar with is the exact opposite except for nuclear power.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#203

Post by [deleted] »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #200
scoofy wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because solar isn't balanced and we haven't fixed the duck curve. We're burning obscene amounts of nat gas, petroleum, and even coal currently. Until those numbers are at-or-near zero, every ounce of renewable electricity needs to be offsetting dirty electricity.

A substantial portion of the duck curve problem is overproduction at no-peak hours. Plasma gasification can take that excess strain off the grid and put it to useful work, while even providing a by-product that you can burn in the event that all of your renewables are underperforming, reducing the risk of relying on renewables. It is literally (part of) a solution to the problem you're bringing up.

[deleted]

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#204

Post by alexanderchr »

bluGill wrote: post #121
renhanxue wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather we'd burn peat (which is also sequestered carbon) instead? Because that's what we used to do. We need to stay warm in winter one way or another. In the 1950's we thought that in the future we'd have nuclear cogeneration plants. There was one such plant (Ågesta) in commercial operation, but it closed in the mid 1970's. edit: also, to your point about sequestration: it's in actual and literal fact the…

I'd prefer you use wind to get the energy(or solar but there isn't much sun when you need heat) and burn nothing.

So would most of us, but somewhat impractically, Sweden tends to be at its coldest when it’s dark and windless.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#205

Post by ggm »

John McCarthy (LISP) was fond of saying on USENET that future generations mining rare minerals from landfill would thank us for putting so many useful things into one mine site.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#207

Post by stouset »

dylan604 wrote: post #186
lolinder wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please point me to a single environmentalist who is against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy, and high-rise buildings but is for golf courses? I'm sure you can find plenty of people who check one or more of those boxes, but I'm interested to know if there's anyone who checks enough of them to be self-contradictory. If you can't point me to one person who holds all beliefs, then you're falling for…

Donald Trump comes to mind

Just so we’re clear, you’re asserting that Donald Trump is an environmentalist?

So we’re on the same page, Wiktionary defines that as: one who advocates for the protection of the environment and biosphere from misuse from human activity.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#208

Post by stouset »

dylan604 wrote: post #196
lolinder wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced Donald Trump believes anything at all, so I think he doesn't count. (Not to mention that Trump tower would seem to exclude him from being against high rises.)

What, 3 out of 4 isn't good enough for you? The high rise part of the comment is an example of "one of these things is not like the others" in that of course people all about the money will like high rises. It also doesn't matter what you think Donald Trump does or does not believe. He has a 4 year track record, and is on record making comments about what he will do if elected again.

The Trump administration backed away from policies meant to reduce carbon emissions, and promoted policies meant to increase energy independence through increased reliance on and use of fossil fuels. The same administration also rolled back nearly 100 separate environmental regulations. It supported developing energy reserves on federally protected land, including national forests and near national monuments.

Trump himself has regularly expressed skepticism over anthropogenic global warming.

I’m… genuinely not sure you can reconcile this with a claim of him being an environmentalist on any axis.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#209

Post by stouset »

kasey_junk wrote: post #171
renewiltord wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmentalists in the US are against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy. They are against high-rise buildings and pro-golf-courses. They can be safely ignored since their stated goals and their actions can only be concordant if one assumes they're idiots or enemies.

Fiscal conservatives in the US are against raising taxes, decreasing military spending, or cutting social security. They can be safely ignored since their stated actions can only be concordant if one assumes they are idiots. It turns out, if you take a wide and varied group, put all of the ideas that any of them have in a bag and shake it up, then assign all those ideas to all of them, you can claim them idiots. Or b…

Actually most that I know are all in that bucket. The trick is that this raises the deficits which they then get to blame on the next Democrat in office. It’s a fun party trick.

Say what you will about “tax and spend” liberals but it’s a sight better than political faction that spends even more but forgets entirely about the revenue end of the equation.

Re: The Engineering of Landfills

#210

Post by gruez »

mikojan wrote: post #160
gruez wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Exactly what statement is incorrect? Your original comment: >> Almost all plastic waste in developed countries ends up in landfills, not the natural environment. >This is horrifyingly incorrect! Developed countries process only some of their trash themselves. I guess you can weasel out of this by claiming that >85% counts as "some", but it's misleading at the very least. Moreover, your statement was trying to refute…

In reality, a significant portion is exported to developing countries, where it often ends up mismanaged. Claiming developed countries handle "almost all" of their plastic waste without acknowledging this export is detracting from wrongdoings me and you bear responsibility for as citizens of relatively free and open democratic societies. It is not somehow misleading. It is morally reprehensible.

>In reality, a significant portion is exported to developing countries, where it often ends up mismanaged.

Source? This directly contradicts what the data in the above article, and that actually has sources backing it up.

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