Biofuel Crops to be Fertilized By Landfill Ooze
by Jaymi Heimbuch, Central Coast, California on 10. 2.08
Photo Via D'Arcy Norman
Landfills aren’t just dumping grounds. All that rot can produce usable energy. Many landfills are already prized turf with methane being used as a fuel source, and cellulosic biofuel plants pillaging the refuse headed towards landfills as feedstock.
But there is a whole other use for the ooze that comes from landfills. It’s headed towards nourishing plant life that will turn into biofuel.
Rotting material creates a liquid called leachate, a liquid that sometimes is left to seep into ground water, and sometimes is piped into lagoons where it can be processed or cleaned up. A developer from Waste Recycling Group wants to use those lagoons as energy generators, where bacteria can eat away at the leachate and eventually turn it to fertilizer. The fertilizer they produce will be used to grow willow coppices, which will be used for biofuel.
It will be an on-site crop, and will help make full use of the landfill space. The project still has to go through approval, but should it get the thumbs up, it’ll be an interesting venture to follow.
Via Gas2
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Does spreading leachate not, in turn, spread lead content?
I would have a NAMBY freakout if I heard the biofuel producer down the road from me was importing dumpster juice to spray near our land. Then again, maybe the process isn't like that. It's a question to ask, I would think.
There's a lot more in those leachates than nutrients -- there are tons of toxic chemicals and metals that are going to react and poison those crops.
This is a mis-guided plan to salt the earth w/ poison. Those acres will never again be fit to grow human or aniimal food crops on, just like the many acerages in the Midwest that were "fertilized" with PCBs in the 1960s.
Oy vey. I love you knee-jerk jerks, "Its gonna poison us all!" What total goons you are. Notice the part where is SAYS: "...where bacteria can eat away at the leachate and eventually turn it to fertilizer."
Anyone?
Miss that?
Well, dopes, that means a biological method of cleansing the toxic elements via bacteria which thrive on those otherwise toxic elements.
I'd go so far as to say that with today's regulations, it would be HIGHLY UNLIKELY that this process would result in poisoning land. Dontcha think? :-/
The only one with the knee-jerk reaction is you Willy. Someone doesn't have an opinion same as yours and you degrade into name calling. As to regulations, companies have been allowed to put toxic chemicals into their products to sell to consumers for many years and they still do. Many of the chemicals have never even been tested. So I think we can expect people to be wary about using a concoction of unknown products to feed crops. More over, personally I don't like the way it almost seems as though it ok to have landfills now because we found a use for them.
Just my own opinion, hope that's ok if I have one Willy.
No, because with today's regulations they ARE poisoning the land. Do you know what they spray on cotton to control weavils? Arsenic. Still legal. Can't grow food crops on any of that land, possibly forever.
And arsenic, like the other heavy metals mentioned by the other commenters, can't be broken down. (see, there are these things called 'atoms', and short of astoundingly high-energy reactions, you can't break them down).
Willy Bio was partially right, but he too didn't finish the article.
"It will be an on-site crop, and will help make full use of the landfill space."
The leachate, and the fertilizer, never leave the landfill! The crop is grown on the landfill!
You got me. (sheepish grin)
But at least my brow beating of the knee-jerk goons was still appropriate. Maybe now even more so! :D
Perhaps WillyBio can explain to some of us dopes how a bacterium can eat an atom of Pb or Hg and alchemically convert it into an atom of something other than a heavy metal.
Thanks in advance.