Trash is a stinky thing to talk about.
Approximately 130 million tons of trash is left to rot in American landfills every year, and even now the numbers are snowballing. Trash is an inconvenient obstacle, no doubt; but sooner or later, someone’s gonna have to do deal with that stuff. Conventional recycling has certainly played a role; it’s let you re-use a stranger’s juice box, use brown paper that’s made out of mystery fibre, and has even given you the option to wipe yourself with some really rough stuff. But even with all those accomplishments, it’s truly disturbing to think that trash is one of the leading producers of methane gas. It need not be mentioned the dangers of methane with regards to the Greenhouse Effect. And if you still don’t know, think of it like this: our atmosphere is kind of like a shield that blocks out solar radiation, and methane makes up some of that shield, except the shield is just a useless piece of s**t, and all that the methane really is doing is creating an infrared oven. Imagine that, an oven floating right above our heads. The trash is just SITTING there, mercilessly farting out volumes, and nobody is doing anything. So really friends, don’t blame the cows.
Thank goodness…
New advancements in plasma technology however, have allowed engineers to turn steaming heaps of rubbish into a practical energy source. The significance of this breakthrough is profound, and the energy production from one landfill can power no less then 50,000 homes.
As for the technological process…
Trash is thrown into a container and is exposed to plasms. The guns literally blast the crap out of garbage until it’s vaporized into gaseous form. This of course rotates nearby turbines and generates power. The process is so beautiful that destroying 1500 tons of garbage can flood a power grid with a minimum of 60 megawatts. As per keeping with recycling, inorganic materials like pieces of metal or minerals are condensed at the bottom of the container and can be used at a future date for heavy construction. So in essence, this technology carries out a dual purpose: less crap more energy is entirely acceptable. This type of power plant, known as a refuse power plant, will make its way into the hands of Floridians by 2011.
But in being brief, I see that this degree of self-sufficiency, reliability and practicality will undoubtedly propagate future Green Technologies. We sure aren’t going to be finished with refuse power plants.
Just wait and see.
