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What benefit would you get from gasification compared to just straight up burning the trash?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification#Advantages
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> If we didn't burn waste we'd need to burn something else to stay warm in winter. Why not nuclear/renewables?
Nuclear was a thing in the 50's/60's but district heating isn't practical over long distances and nobody wanted nuclear plants in their suburbs. Renewables we already do burn quite a bit of. But really, quite a lot of household waste is actually renewable too - cardboard packaging, food scraps that didn't end up in the compost, such things. So it's really not that bad. Waste accounts for about 20% of the total energy…
Modern heat pumps are really good (like 400%+ efficient), and run on electricity.
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Nuclear was a thing in the 50's/60's but district heating isn't practical over long distances and nobody wanted nuclear plants in their suburbs. Renewables we already do burn quite a bit of. But really, quite a lot of household waste is actually renewable too - cardboard packaging, food scraps that didn't end up in the compost, such things. So it's really not that bad. Waste accounts for about 20% of the total energy…
I meant what's impossible about making electricity from nuclear/renewable sources and then powering electric heaters with that electricity?
Electric heaters get you 100% efficiency. Heat pumps get you 400%+ efficiency.
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So it goes into the sky instead? That seems more sightly, but the CO2 emissions must be astronomical.
When it comes to plastics I like to think that it’s basically a product of oil and other oil related products are burnt all the time for energy. The end goal should include a carbon capture step. They’ve looked into that here in Oslo, Norway, but it ended up much costlier than anticipated and at the moment it looks like it’s going to be very very drawn out. Carbon capture at the source is usually not that terrible of…
the landfill gas capture systems that burn it off or use it for power are not installed until fairly late in the life cycle of a cell. food has a fairly short half life which means that a lot of it will decay before capture, or even final cover, is in place
total methane from landfills is down (from ~160 to ~100 mmt co2e since 1990), but the portion of this from food is way up
So many people misunderstand landfills. All the garbage produced in the U.S. for the next 1000 years could fit into a landfill 100 yards deep and 35 miles across on each side. That is, landfills take a trivial amount of space. Putting stuff in a landfill is way better for global warming since its not burned, the carbon is buried. Almost all plastic waste in developed countries ends up in landfills, not the natural en…
> Almost all plastic waste in developed countries ends up in landfills, not the natural environment. Here in Sweden less than 0.5% of household waste goes to landfill. Almost everything is burned in co-generation plants for district heating, with pretty sophisticated exhaust gas treatment. Unfortunately most of the plastic waste that goes into the recycling bins also end up there in the end, with only about 10% curre…
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/opinion/solar-power-free-... By the end of this year, the world will be deploying 660GW of solar annually. Within 18 months, that figure rises to 1TW/year (based on current manufacturing ramp trajectories). On the contrary, I’m unsure how you think we don’t have the clean power for this, not even accounting for the power you can generate from the syngas that is a byproduct of the pr…
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.
That’s not realistic. You can and probably will have a complete excess of renewable energy on bright and windy days that is well beyond electrical demand, and at the same time rely on baseload power during still nights. Energy storage helps even things out, and plasma gasification is one possible way to store that energy.
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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
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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 h…
I don't know what I read to get a totally opposite meaning of the original comment, but rereading it now does make this ID10T level of WTF
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It was so frustrating when a dude at work was trying to bust my balls for not using the recycling for my plastic bottle. I didn’t have the energy or patience to explain to him how our city has single stream recycling and there was 100% chance that bottle was being shipped overseas, dumped in the ocean or something else way more stupid than just being buried in the city landfill.
I worked in an office with recycling bins where everything was just gathered up and thrown in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage. It wasn't just our cleaning people, either: from my desk I could see the only two parking lot entrances and while the garbage truck came weekly, never once did I see a recycling truck.