# The Economist Talks Trash – ERC

- Link: https://greenlivingguy.com/2011/04/the-economist-talks-trash-erc/
- Published: 2011-04-17T05:29:50-04:00
- Author: greenlivingguy

Source: Energy Recovery Council

_The Economist_ has noted the growing interest in turning trash into electricity
through the use of electric plasma torches in a recent [article](https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2011/02/03/turning-garbage-into-gas).
Stating that burying trash “is old-fashioned and polluting”, the article looks at
the technical ability and profitability of plasma-based technologies to manage municipal
solid waste.  More than three dozen American firms are proposing plasma-torch syngas
plants, according to Gershman, Brickner & Bratton, a waste consultancy based in 
Fairfax, Virginia (and ERC member).  While no plasma facilities currently operate
in the United States, this article demonstrates the concentrated effort of many 
companies to make this technology work on a commercial scale.  In short, it shows
that household trash is a valuable energy source and the business of making [ energy](https://greenlivingguy.com/2022/08/10-largest-wind-project-development-2022/)
from waste has a bright future.

[_**
From The Economist:
**_

DISPOSING of household rubbish is not, at first glance, a task that looks amenable
to high-tech solutions. But Hilburn Hillestad of Geoplasma, a firm based in Atlanta,
Georgia, begs to differ. Burying trash—the usual way of disposing of the stuff—is
old-fashioned and polluting. Instead, Geoplasma, part of a conglomerate called the
Jacoby Group, proposes to tear it into its constituent atoms with electricity. It
is clean. It is modern. And, what is more, it might even be profitable.

For years, some particularly toxic types of waste, such as the sludge from oil refineries,
have been destroyed with artificial lightning from electric plasma torches—devices
that heat matter to a temperature higher than that of the sun’s surface. Until recently
this has been an expensive process, costing as much as $2,000 per tonne of waste,
according to SRL Plasma, an Australian firm that has manufactured torches for 13
of the roughly two dozen plants around the world that work this way.

Now, though, costs are coming down. Moreover, it has occurred to people such as 
Dr Hillestad that the process could be used to generate power as well as consuming
it. Appropriately tweaked, the destruction of organic materials (including paper
and plastics) by plasma torches produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen
called syngas. That, in turn, can be burned to generate electricity. Add in the 
value of the tipping fees that do not have to be paid if rubbish is simply vaporised,
plus the fact that energy prices in general are rising, and plasma torches start
to look like a plausible alternative to burial.