Jay Toups

About Plasma Gasification and Next Generation Waste To Energy Technology

Introduction

I solve business and tech problems for my clients every day. I stay plenty busy. I’ve worked from home since 1998.  Yet I’ve always felt a need to address bigger problems such as our declining global environment. And never more strongly than after recovering from a near-fatal heart attack in June 2008. It’s a miracle I’m still alive, so I obviously believe in miracles having experienced one firsthand.

So I’m going to take advantage of that small (but huge to me) miracle by trying to spark another Hail Mary that’s far larger and more important for everyone.

Watching our country go downhill as a result of self-inflicted injuries (In the USA we don’t make things we consume and we have yet to figure out what to do with our trash) has inspired me to put together everything I can find about Waste To Energy (W2E) Technology, and the volatile business and political environment that surrounds it.

My personal objective is to develop the business opportunity for building a gasification facility in the Bitterroot valley, powered by municipal solid waste and woody biomass.

The Waste To Energy Miracle Starts With All of Us

“Fundamental transformation of the Nation’s current extractive fossil fuel energy economy to a sustainable energy economy is a critical grand challenge.”

April 2009 Report, National Science Board

About one-third of energy delivered in the US is used by the industrial sector, and one-half of that is consumed by three industries (bulk chemicals, petroleum refining, and paper products). The transportation sector accounts for the second highest share of total end-use consumption at 29%, followed by the residential sector at 21% and the commercial sector at 18%. Petroleum is the highest energy source at around 40%, followed by natural gas (23%), coal (22%), nuclear electric power (8%), and renewable energy (7%). The transportation sector has historically consumed the most petroleum, with its petroleum consumption dramatically increasing over the past few decades. Petroleum accounted for 95% of the transportation sector’s energy consumption.
Source: April 2009 Report from the National Science Board.

So the burning question about what’s in your trash. We all know what’s there because we generate several pounds of the stuff every day: paper, plastic, garbage, glass, metal, etc. Old batteries. Bleach bottles. Old paint. Yard waste. Kitchen waste. You name it, it’s in America’s trash. But let’s take the question a step further: what’s really in America’s trash? Much more than used up stuff you’d rather not think about. Household waste is full of raw energy resources that can lead to energy independence, jobs, and economic development. In your town, in my town. But only if we have the guts and capital to put together a business that can profitably convert the solid waste  to energy.

For as long as mankind has generated solid wastes, the accepted disposal method has mainly been either landfilling or incineration. This has continued to the present day despite great advancements in technology, as well as increasingly severe environmental impacts to our air and water created by incineration and the proliferation of landfills used for burying municipal solid waste.

Most people living today don’t remember the birth of energy-intensive industries that spawned the American Century. In the 20th century, America led the world in commercializing energy-intensive technologies to land men on the moon, provide national power and telecommunication grids, the automobile, the airplane, and dozens more innovations . All powered by oil that gushed from the earth in such abundance that it once seemed limitless.

American preeminence in petroleum engineering and science not only brought us the highest standard of living ever known, it also created lots of solid waste, chemical waste, and hazardous radioactive waste. Today, what isn’t recycled or sequestered goes into a landfill. Some of what’s left inevitably finds its way into our water, land and air. Into our bodies. Polluting our nest became a sad fact of life. And we’re now paying Middle East countries for the privilege of living in a throw-away culture because we’re basically running out of cheap oil.

You’re probably asking yourself what this has to do with our forests and our municipal solid waste.

The question is, what potential biomass energy sources and their respective supplies of raw materials will offset the need for oil?

If You Do Your Part

Today, the average person in our country disposes of 4.5 pounds of solid waste each and every day. This year, 957,861 Montanans will generate 2155 tons of solid waste per day, or 786,575 tons MSW. In the Missoula landfill there’s 4 million tons of solid waste, and this facility will be full in less than fifteen years and be closed. What then? Another landfill?

We’re not about to stop buying new stuff and throwing stuff away. So where will we put all this trash when our landfills reach capacity?

A back of the envelope calculation reveals:

Average 4.5 lbs of solid waste X 300 million consumers X 365 days= 492,750,000,000 lbs. (493 billion pounds) of solid waste per year. 246,500,000 tons

The 21st century call to action for the United States is to solve its energy dependency and jumpstart our economy onto a sustainable path to recovery.

How best to do this? Could it be that the solution is staring us all in the face with its elegance? Could the solution really be as simple as what’s in your trash can?

A Corny Joke

There are two main approaches to producing ethanol from biomass materials:

• Hydrolysis to sugars
• Gasification to syngas

We’re facing some huge changes now. Global warming and overwhelming pollution are forcing us to reconsider the way we occupy the world, altering our relationship to food, water, air, soil, energy, and each other. The transition from petroleum-based fuels and away from non-recyclable goods is going to re-structure our entire economy, one way or another. It’s inevitable if our modern world is to survive and prosper in any meaningful measure.

And, in the grip of this inexorable drift toward change, America continues being governed by political dinosaurs who refuse to acknowledge that the 20th century era of cheap oil is over. Which is why, every time our so-called leaders open their mouths (at least until recently), it’s obvious they don’t have the vision, the intelligence, or the courage to face the future that everyone can clearly see bearing down on us, whether we’re ready or not. Washington’s cluelessness infuriates us and terrifies us. They will never take us where we need to go. Much of the energy and promise in this year’s election is due to the fact that a majority of Americans have figured out that our government is leaving us ordinary Americans hung out here, completely on our own, to manage huge and inevitable changes with no support or guidance whatsoever.

What will save us from fossil fuel energy dependency? America’s pursuit of alternatives to oil has led to massive investment in biofuels made from maize (corn). That in turn has cut the amount of maize being used for food production and so contributed to rising food prices. The price of corn doubled in 2007 from $200 to $400 a ton. And the production of biofuels from food crops such as corn is also very water-intensive.

David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farm land, the same space needed to grow a year’s supply of food for seven people.

The growing use of corn for ethanol is already being blamed for higher meat prices since it drives up the cost of livestock feed. It’s blamed for higher food prices because farmers are devoting so much acreage to corn rather than other crops. President Bush set a goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive by 2012.

An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting this much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to recent analysis. Even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

Do we have to grow food crops to convert them into biofuels? Or is there a better, smarter way?

Cellulosic ethanol is the most efficient source of ethanol, since it comes from waste products that aren’t part of the food chain, such as corn.

A Better Mousetrap

Not many waste management technologies hold as much long-term promise as plasma conversion. No other approach (incineration, digester, pyrolisis) is as flexible in the feedstocks that can be converted to usable commodities like ethanol or hydrogen.

And among the biomass-to-energy methods, not many are more expensive to deploy apparently.

Conversion technologies include processes that can be categorized into thermal, biological, and chemical technologies (some approaches involve combinations of these). Thermal CTs are well developed overseas, and include gasification, pyrolysis, and subsets of these, such as plasma gasification and processes that combine gasification and pyrolysis.

What’s the difference between pyrolysis and gasification?

• Pyrolysis is the thermal degradation of organic materials, using an indirect source of heat at 750-1,650 degrees F in the absence of oxygen, to produce a synthetic gas, leaving behind a carbon char.
• Gasification is the thermal conversion of organic materials, using direct heat at 1,400-2,500 degrees F with a limited supply of oxygen, producing a syngas.

What is Plasma and Plasma Gasification?

Plasma is a phase of matter distinct from solids, liquids, and gases. It is the most abundant phase of matter in the universe: stars and interstellar dust consist of plasma. Although it is its own phase of matter, plasma is often referred to as an ionized gas. This is similar to a normal gas, except that electrons have been stripped from their respective nucleons and float freely within the plasma. Even if only 1% of the atoms have lost their electrons, a gas will display plasma-like behavior.

Plasma is electrically conductive and can be manipulated by magnetic fields. It can be found in a variety of everyday contexts, including plasma displays, fluorescent lamps, neon signs, plasma balls, photolithographic etching machines, flames, lightning, aurora borealis (Northern Lights), tesla coils, and more.

Plasmas vary widely. Some parameters used for their classification are the degree of ionization, temperature, density of the magnetic field, and particle density. For example, the gas in a candle flame is only slightly ionized, whereas the air in the path of a lightning bolt is highly ionized.

Because plasma can be contained by magnetic fields, it can be made very hot without diffusing heat into a surrounding medium. The arc in the plasma can be as high as 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or about three times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Plasma is a gas that the Converter ionizes so it becomes an effective electrical conductor and produces a lightning-like arc of electricity – the source of the energy transferred to the waste material. When waste materials are subjected to the intensity of the energy transfer within the vessel, excitation of the wastes’ molecular bonds is so great that the waste materials’ molecules break apart into their elemental components (atoms).

It is the absorption of this energy by the waste material that forces the waste destruction and elemental dissociation, rendering harmless nearly all forms to hazardous and toxic waste.

Plasma conversion has a clear edge over feedstock-specific biofuels methods because its converter doesn’t have to be reconfigured to accept different feedstock materials, which means operators don’t have to presort waste, a costly and time-consuming process. The result is the flexibility to convert “everything” or to reclaim recyclable materials first.

Plasma gasification is not only environmentally responsible, it also makes complete economic common sense. A facility that costs about $250 million could process 2,000 tons of waste daily. That’s enough to accommodate the needs of a city (or a state) of a million people.

Such an investment could pay for itself in less than 10 years, not including the money made from selling the excess electricity and syngas.

How does a Plasma Gasification system operate?

A sealed vessel is filled with a stable gas, such as nitrogen. As current passes between two electrodes, electrons are ripped from the air, converting the gas into plasma. As current continues to flow, it creates an intense energy field with plasma arcs. The radiant energy of the 30,000˚F plasma arcs disintegrates trash into its basic elements by tearing apart the materials’ molecular bonds.

Tile, tires, oil, garbage, wood, nails, glass, metal, plastic, diapers – almost any material can be converted to gas and slag, eliminating the time-consuming, costly process of sorting waste by hand. (Nuclear waste is the sole exception due to its indestructible isotopes.)

Gasification facilities typically have four main components: a feedstock pre-processing system, a conversion unit, a post-processing system for producing and purifying synthetic gas, and a back end for producing a marketable product.

The Startech Plasma Converter produces commodity products from processed feedstocks that were previously regarded as wastes.

Startech Environmental is an environment and energy industry company engaged in the production and sale of an innovative, proprietary plasma processing equipment known as the Plasma Converter System. Startech’s Plasma Converter System safely and economically destroys wastes, no matter how hazardous or lethal, and turns it into useful and valuable products. In doing so, the System protects the environment and helps to improve public health and safety. The System achieves closed-loop elemental recycling to safely and irreversibly destroy Municipal Solid Waste, forest slash, organics and inorganics, solids, liquids and gases, hazardous and non- hazardous waste, industrial by-products and also items such as “e-waste,” medical waste, chemical industry waste and other specialty wastes, while converting many of them into useful commodity products that can include metals and a synthesis-gas called Plasma Converted Gas (PCG).

Among the many commercial uses for PCG, is its potential use to produce “green electrical power” and Gas-To-Liquid (GTL) fuels such as methanol and synthetic higher-alcohol “alternative” fuels. Hydrogen, for use and sale, can also be separated and recovered from the Startech PCG synthesis gas mixture.

Plasma Converter Systems

• Can process waste materials in any form;
• Can process Biomass;
• Safer than environmental standards;
• Safe and irreversible destruction;
• Closed end looped system;
• Recycles wastes into valuable commodity products;
• Revenue potential on front and back-ends;
• Stationary and transportable systems available;
• Systems available in multiple sizes and multiple feed systems;
• Syngas can be used to produce Diesel, Electricity, Ethanol, Hydrogen or sold as is.

Plasma Conversion Principal Advantages

• Greatly reduces cost and risk associated with hazardous waste generation;
• Can process any and all waste material in all forms;
• Far superior & safer performance than current environmental standards;
• Recycles wastes into valuable commodity products;
• Systems from hundreds of pounds per day to thousands of tons per day;
• Stationary, transportable and mobile systems;
• Safe and irreversible destruction of even the most deadly wastes.
• Most Organic Waste will be converted into an alternative form of energy
• Medical/Pharmaceutical Wastes;
• Scrap Tires & PCBs or Chlorinated Organics;
• Mixed non-recyclable Plastics;
• Household Hazardous & Non-Hazardous Waste;
• Industrial Hazardous Waste;
• Refinery & Petrochemical Wastes;
• Used Mineral & Vegetable Oils;

Summary of Plasma Conversion Technology Opportunity

• PCS processes a wide range of feedstock;
• Achieves irreversible destruction;
• Safer than environmental standards;
• Produces valuable PCG synthesis gas;
• Electrical power, diesel, ethanol, hydrogen & other products;
• Revenue potential on front and back-ends;
• PCS manufactured in a range of standard sizes;

Other Conversion/Gasification start-ups—

Coskata, ICM, Integrated Environmental Technologies, Geoplasma, Recovered Energy, PyroGenesis, EnviroArc, Plasco Energy, Emery Energy, Pyromex, among others—have entered the market in the past 10 years.

Integrated Environmental Technologies, LLC (”IET”), a provider of plasma-based waste processing and clean energy systems, has developed the proprietary Plasma Enhanced Melter (”PEM”) system that transforms virtually any type of waste material into valuable commercial products including: clean fuels that can be used to generate electricity, a glass-like material that can be used to create items such as blasting grit or building materials and recoverable metals. The PEM™ system has been proven effective for a broad variety of waste streams and the Company has already sold and installed commercial units that are operational and processing waste. IET has taken orders and down payments for a number of additional systems.

Obstacles to Biomass Commercialization

Transportation Overhead

Smaller more efficient systems for converting waste biomass to syngas could help meet one of the most significant challenges. Transporting bulky material such as wood chips, forest slash, etc., long distances to central facilities uses a lot of fossil fuels. It also makes the overall process more expensive.

Small, distributed syngas plants could reduce these transportation costs by decreasing the distance biomass has to be shipped. Further, municipal solid waste can be converted where it is consumed instead of being trucked back to Missoula.

Financing Issues

Tighter liquidity on global financial markets resulting from the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market has made banks more risk-averse. As a result, conditions have become tougher, pushing up interest payments for loans and other financing costs, which reduces the cashflow and leads to higher purchase prices for investors.

Legislation Issues

Politicians are falling all over themselves touting the promise of cellulosic biofuels and woody biomass energy in meeting our nation’s forest health and renewable energy challenges. Despite the rhetoric, Congress has taken several steps backwards in realizing these goals.

The House of Representatives recently passed an Energy Bill harmful to both biomass power production and renewable fuel (biofuels) development. The legislation included a 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard (RFS) that excluded all biofuels derived from woody biomass (thinnings, etc.) off of federal forests.

To make matters worse, the RFS also excludes biomass from private lands not managed as “plantations” or “planted” and exhibiting “late-successional” or “old growth” characteristics from qualifying. These provisions are likely to hit some small forestland owners who don’t manage their forests as industrial tree farms.

For the purposes of renewable energy produced from woody biomass, the House-passed bill would place restrictions on biomass that would qualify under a renewable portfolio standard. The language would prohibit the use of wood “contaminated with plastic or metals” such as urban wood waste which has minor quantities of both before being removed prior to conversion to energy.

The language would also exclude woody biomass derived from many Forest Service vegetation management projects, by requiring that projects “maximize” old growth and late successional forest structure. Unfortunately, projects designed to improve wildlife habitat, reduce hazardous fuel levels, or remove hazard trees for public safety could run afoul of such requirements.

Hence, the Senate ultimately stripped the entire renewable portfolio standard, including the language pertaining to biomass energy power production. Unfortunately, the Senate did pass the renewable fuel standard with its restrictions on renewable biofuels derived from federal and non-industrial forests.

After receiving a large majority vote in the Senate, this energy package will now return for a vote in the House before being sent to the President. The White House has signaled initial support for the legislation.

Clean energy industries and investors are going to have to wait until a new administration comes into office with a real plan for energy that provides incentives to the right people and penalizes those who grow ever richer by polluting.

Challenges in The US

Unfortunately, there are a number of barriers to CT development in the US. The key barriers include:

No CTs Previously Operating. There are no commercial-scale CTs operating in the US, using MSW as a feedstock. While a number of projects are in the development stage, many of these projects will not go forward due to development risks that apply to any new venture. Some counties and cities are risk averse, they don’t want to be the first on the block with a CT; they would rather wait until a few of these systems are operating.

Financing Hurdles. As with any new venture, financing can be difficult. Adding to the problem is that most of the suppliers of CTs have limited resources. The larger corporations don’t appear to be involved in this business as yet; they will arrive, however, once the momentum of this fledgling industry increases.

Opposition. As more CT projects are being proposed, opposition from specific groups is growing. One is the global environmental organization that opposes mass-burn incineration. This group has typically opposed CT implementation on the grounds that CTs are actually “incinerators in disguise”. This is untrue; in fact, there are many significant technological differences between CTs and mass-burn incinerators. Another opposition group is the recycling industry. This industry sees CTs as a threat to its business because it claims that CTs will process all MSW, including recyclables. As mentioned above, this is unlikely because, A.) projects under development are using MSW residuals, and B.) the value of residuals as a recycled material is higher than its value for CT processing.

The Call To Action

There’s a growing realization that America is now heading into the biggest financial contraction since the Great Depression, and possibly even much worse. And it’s one that people with common sense have seen coming for years, as our politicians have systematically dismantled the economic foundations of the country. Good paying jobs went offshore. Investments in infrastructure and education were diverted to the war machine. Government oversight of banks and securities was woefully lacking. Vast chunks of the American economy were sold off to the Saudis for oil, or to the Chinese for cheap consumer goods and borrowed money to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.

Our government isn’t ever going to fund a leading edge facility here in the Bitterroot valley to manage our waste streams or create clean energy. They can’t afford to. Neither will the local waste haulers and national waste management company who owns the landfill where all our trash goes. They make money hauling and landfilling and aren’t interested in talking with people about sustainable alternatives. At least not yet.

As for what happens on the waste-to-energy front here in the Bitterroot, it’s up to you. And me.

Plasma conversion is proven technology that provides a ground floor business opportunity for any group of investors who can fund and build a profitable business around the byproducts created, with the results being a cleaner environment, and abundant energy streams from formerly useless waste.

Revolutions follow in the wake of national economic reversals. Almost always, these reversals occur when inept and corrupt governments mismanage the national economy to the point of indebtedness, bankruptcy, and currency collapse.

What’s not to like about plasma conversion?