US’s First Plasma Gasification Waste-to-Energy Plant Online by 2011

This can be done to any fossil fuel - you get hydrogen to burn (power) and elemental carbon that is a commodity. It's much easier to contain the carbon before burning it - beats carbon sequestering theories. Clean coal…plus a marketable by product – carbon for steel, carbon fiber, etc…

Wrong ---- the St. Lucie County, FL plasma arc bad idea plan is on hold -- and may not ever happen. If it sounds too good to be true....

http://g2.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/10/05/a16a_swartzcol_1005.html
Will reality zap fantasy?
By Sally Swartz

Palm Beach Post Columnist

Sunday, October 05, 2008

It sounded too good to be true: a garbage zapper that would vaporize everything from old truck tires to hurricane debris, reducing 500 tons of trash to a shiny black rock smaller than a paper clip. The process, promoted by a company called Geoplasma, would generate enough electricity to run the plant and more to sell.St. Lucie County commissioners were excited. The $450 million plant, paid for by the company and built on county property at the landfill, would be the largest in the world, vaporizing more than 1,500 tons of trash daily. After expansion, it could handle 3,000 tons daily, reducing the size of landfills. It even could zap sewage, promising an end to spreading it on rural lands or dumping it in the ocean.

In 2006, the commission signed an agreement with Geoplasma for a plant that would process 1,000 tons per day. The county has been trying to negotiate details ever since.Commissioner Doug Coward, who believes strongly in green energy, was the first to question whether green also would be clean. For example, a coal plant the county rejected would have released 200 pounds of mercury per year into the atmosphere. The Geoplasma plant promised 15 pounds to 20 pounds."The numbers," Commissioner Coward said, "were pretty impressive." He asked for proof. The company couldn't provide it. The county hired a consultant, who said there is no proof. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection had no standards for such a plant, so it fell back on the closest category, incinerators, which are allowed more mercury emissions than the rejected coal plant.In a recent Stuart News column, Dr. Ron Saff of Tallahassee's Physicians for Social Responsibility and Donato Viggiano, president of the St. Lucie-Okeechobee Medical Society, cited worries about hazardous byproducts such as dioxin, mercury and heavy metals that the plant would release, and about the size of the project. Health effects of such emissions, they said, can include "cancer, IQ deficits, disrupted sexual development, birth defects, immune system damage, behavioral disorders, diabetes and altered sex ratios." The doctors also questioned whether the plant could generate enough electricity to sell and noted problems and failures with three other plasma arc facilities.Commissioner Coward said the company didn't want to be liable for any problems with public health: "We have to make sure we do this thing right. We're setting the standard for the entire country." Others say the company has been difficult to negotiate with, often making verbal promises, then presenting an opposite view in writing.Last week, Atlanta-based Geoplasma wrote the county to change its proposal, suggesting a facility that would process only 200 tons of garbage per day, with the possibility of adding more capacity later. Now, County Administrator Doug Anderson said, company officials say they want to increase the capacity to 400 tons. "We're going to request a new proposal, outlining what their intentions are," he said. The staff will review it, and take it to the commission for direction.Adding to problems is that the county wants tighter standards on emissions than the DEP requires. The county, he said, is determined to protect the environment: "It's new technology with not a lot of history. It's difficult to be the first. We want to do this right. We're considering every aspect very carefully."In the rush to embrace green energy, it's tempting to believe what sounds too good to be true. It's new, exciting territory. Alas, the miracle garbage-zapper has great problems as well as great promise. As St. Lucie is learning, it's not easy being green.Sally Swartz is a former member of the Editorial Board. Her e-mail address is sdswartz42@comcast.net

also see: Toxic Scandal and Toxic Threat
Sacramento Greenaction Plasma Report August 26, 2008.doc (4371KB)

GreenactionSacramentoPlasmaReport082608.pdf

and at
brattononline.com/index.php?p=280

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author responds:
I placed a call to the Jacoby Group, and they confirmed that they still are planning for a 2011 completion date for the project. Though as the Palm Beach Post article you point out indicates, there may have to be some revisions in the plans between now and then.

Great news and a great victory for environmental justice: The Pajaro Valley Coalition for Environmental Justice and Greenaction have just defeated a plasma arc incinerator proposed to be built next to the Buena Vista migrant farm labor camp in Watsonville. The decision will apparently be finalized by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Similar projects are being proposed across the world. Hopefully this victory will inspire other communities to be alert to similar proposals and to fight them. More information about these incinerators in disguise can be found at www.greenaction. org and www.no-burn. org
Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper November 13, 2008 (online version)
County dumps plan for waste-to-energy plant at Buena Vista
By Kurtis Alexander - Sentinel staff writer

A much-hyped plan to vaporize the county's trash with an unprecedented waste-to-energy technology is likely off the table, for good.
County officials in discussion with Southern California-based AdaptiveArc say the company has failed to provide assurances that its technology is safe and effective. The county Public Works Department is expected to ask county supervisors to release them from negotiations next week."We think it's time to allow the company to try to install their hardware elsewhere," said Public Works Director Tom Bolich.The move to end discussions with AdaptiveArc removes hope of a quick fix for the county's lingering trash problem. The landfill, at 1231 Buena Vista Drive , is expected to fill up within the next two decades, perhaps sooner, and county leaders have yet to identify an alternative for waste disposal.AdaptiveArc, a privately funded start-up with about two dozen employees, had put forth a plan earlier this year to operate, at no cost to the county, a trial plasma-arc gasification facility at the county landfill. The proposal, largely untested in the municipal setting, would use the intense heat of an electrical "arc" to break down trash into a synthetic gas that could generate electricity. If county leaders were pleased with the operation, they could choose to expand it.The plan, however, stumbled as questions emerged about its feasibility and potential air emissions.
A San Francisco environmental group that equates the technology to incineration helped organize a small group of local protestors, the Pajaro Valley Coalition for Environmental Justice, to draw attention to possible cancer-causing pollutants. Meanwhile, requests for additional data by the county and the local air board, which would need to sign off on the proposed facility, went mostly ignored by AdaptiveArc.

"They started by saying there was no emissions at all, and we should just issue them a permit. But that wasn't realistic," said Mike Sewell, air quality engineer for the Monterey Bay Unified Regional Air Pollution Control District. "There are emissions from everything."Kris Skrinak, a managing partner with AdaptiveArc, concedes the company's information fell short of the regulatory demands, but says he had hoped there would be more leniency for a new and promising technology."It's a little bit sad," said Skrinak, of the county's plan to pull out of negotiations. "It's not like this technology is not needed."Skrinak says AdapativeArc has a list of 60 other agencies that are interested in working with the company. AdaptiveArc operates a plasma-arc facility in Monterrey , Mexico , though local engineers haven't seen evidence that the plant runs successfully.While there are no comparable plasma-arc gasification plants in California , Santa Cruz hasn't been alone in considering the technology. The city of Sacramento is in discussions with a waste-to-energy company, though it is encountering similar information problems.The county Public Works Department's request to end negotiations with AdaptiveArc is expected to be approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday."We're thrilled to hear this news," said Bradley Angel, the head of San Francisco-based Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, which protested this project and has opposed similar ones. "We think the health and environment of Watsonville and Santa Cruz is going to be better off for it."

are you people stupid this is the greatist tech to hit this earth. the plasma arc incinerator is a closed system no gases no mercury no nothing escapes .what is left over is hydrogen which is syphend off to run a generater that produces more energy than it needs, metal ingots that can be sold, and a slag like substance that is used in tiles and road paving.it can even handle nuclear and biological material with no problem with the same result.i have seen these facilitys at work and man is it beautiful and you will notice no smell or smoke stacks in and around the building.please dont fight this tech as it is the best bet for wast disposal in the usa

To me to critize without any concrete support turns out to be counter productive. Research has shown that two of such plasma plants are in operation in Japan and one in Bristol, CT and are working with little emissions. Why don't we try this new technology but just throw it overboard. Crictics killed Corpenicus for saying the earth is round because they knew the earth was flat. But today we all know the earth is round. He was killed for nothing. Why not give the new technology a chance.

To me to critize without any concrete support turns out to be counter productive. Research has shown that two of such plasma plants are in operation in Japan and one in Bristol, CT and are working with little emissions. Why don't we try this new technology but just throw it overboard. Crictics killed Corpenicus for saying the earth is round because they knew the earth was flat. But today we all know the earth is round. He was killed for nothing. Why not give the new technology a chance.