The Prophet of Garbage

Joseph Longo's Plasma Converter turns our most vile and toxic trash into clean energy—and promises to make a relic of the landfill

read more digg story

Ah, alternative energy sources. Why don’t they get more R&D funding? Why hasn’t the government pushed to find more things like Joseph Longo’s Plasma Converter?

Joseph had a great idea, put trash in, incinerate that trash breaking it down into it’s elemental components (plasma gasification), with the only outputs being a synthesis gas that can be refined to a multitude of different fuels, and an “obsidian-like glass used as a raw material for numerous applications, including bathroom tiles and high-strength asphalt.” Sounds pretty good. Almost too good to be true…why hasn’t this caught on before now?

Turns out it has. Based on the article, the US Army was the first to buy a Plasma Converter…10 years ago. Seems for the most part, it hasn’t been monetarily responsible to buy and run one, what with the energy costs to run the converter. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, with rising gasoline and fuel costs, and the cost to keep buying land to fill with garbage combined with the increased waste from heavily populated areas (like New York), these Plasma Converters have now become feasible to buy and run.

The next logical question is the same with most alternative energies that are researched…will the bureaucrats in government who get kickbacks from those who make money on the old, inefficient, and environmentally unsafe processes let something like this proceed? Based on the article, it looks like New York’s going to give it a try, and a lot of more responsible and less greedy countries already have their orders in for their converters.

Got any other interesting alternative energy articles out there? Let me know, I’d love to blog them and get them on digg!