After Gutenberg

BAUAAAE (Business As Usual And Above All Else) prevails in U.S. energy policy. This blog criticizes such policy, sometimes acerbically. Sometimes it is easy to do, e.g., when the Obama administration perpetuates the clean coal lie, e.g., in his first WEFW SOTU (State Of The Union) address. Sometimes it is more difficult to stay one-sided.

Entrained flow gasification technology is WEFW (What Emperor Fossil Wants)

The Haliburton loophole is a recent example. Easy to despise the past Vice President and other Repugnants in power that said it was all right to poison our water. And, yet, natural gas is better environmentally than coal, plus the infrastructure allows for biogas usage. Yes, it is a dilemma, Energy Users.

Plasma gasification technology was an earlier dilemma for this blog, which we revisit in this post. Because, as Mike Millikin tells us, there are several facilities operating commercially around the world using WPC (Westinghouse Plasma Corporation) technology. There are several more in final design phase and or construction. One example is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

AFE (Alliance Federated Energy) has announced a $225-million, 25MW energy project that will process municipal and industrial wastes into syngas for use in power generation. “AFE plans to have the project operational in late 2013. The first phase of the renewable energy facility is expected to process approximately 1,200 tons of municipal and industrial waste per day, generating enough clean energy to power roughly 20,000 homes in the Milwaukee area.”

“While the production of Syngas by the gasification of carbon-bearing feedstock does well in an economic analysis, it does less well environmentally, i.e., in terms of aggregate increases in greenhouse gases or toxins. “

Another reason to revisit the topic: large-scale gasification of municipal solid waste requires significant long-term investment in hot gas conditioning plus safe handling of heavy metals and other toxic waste. It is scary to imagine such development in the United States amidst the incessant yapping by Congressional lapdogs about restricting EPA ability to regulate green house gas emissions.

It is easy to despise the lapdog owners and the SCOTUS invasion by major international corporations (British Petroleum, Shell, Siemens) for their green washing. the infrastructure that allows liquid fuel production is much worse than standard petroleum refining. Yet waste as a resource has undeniable appeal, because gasifiers can use a variety of feedstock.

In the AFE article, Mike Millikin reports:

Approximately 30% of the waste feedstock is already committed from Badger Disposal of Wisconsin, one of region’s leading industrial waste management services companies. Discussions are underway with third parties for the sale of syngas and electricity.

Gasification of biomass and municipal solid waste is but a small part of the reason for Syngas Spin. Gasification is a major technological investment by Big Oil since it is part of the process to take bitumen, a.k.a., tar sands, and convert it to a feedstock for oil refining. You might think the coal industry would resist such development, yet it endorses these gasification technologies, because a high minimum throughput of many tons per day is required to be cost effective. Gasifiers can use many different types of coal, It is a way to use large amounts of low grade coal. The Syngas Spin Doctors smile knowingly, “It’s Future Gen all the way, baby.”

Syngas Spin promotes gasification as a panacea. Troubled by toxic waste? Here is an easy way to rid yourself of that troublesome petroleum coke, sewage, industrial sludges, oils, slurries, liquid production wastes, etc. WPC even mentions coal ash.

After Gutenberg, the weblog that gives its readers a front row seat on the destruction of life as we know it.

While this blog can admit the appeal of energy policy that fosters gasification of hydrocarbons, it repeatedly will warn that such waste to energy advocacy really is a cover for promoting “clean coal” technology, which isn’t.

From the contact form:

Respected Sir,
I am a student and wish to learn more about a Biogasifier and its technical specifications, i.e., capacities. I will be obliged to learn from you.

Dear Student,
Please specify time period. In terms of the capacity to destroy life on the Planet as we know it, you may want to work on ‘da Bomb’ if looking for quick results. One views climate change on a different scale. Nevertheless, you possibly could design and build a profitable gasifier that was the straw on the camel’s back, pushing the world past an irrevocable tipping point.

Best regards,

Related articles by Zemanta

• A New Clean Economy — With Old Sources of Energy (time.com)