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Jordan Wirfs-Brock's List: Waste Streams
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Eric and Andrew Day propose going back to burning our trash, but instead of using open-air incinerators or even high-temperature Basic Oxygen furnaces, they like the idea of burning our crap in electric plasma furnaces at temperatures in excess of 15,000 degrees Celsius. Take everything that would have gone to the landfill, add to it, if you like, everything that would have been recycled, and even leave in the really bad stuff like medical waste, toxic waste, heavy metals, and radioactive waste. Grind it all up into little chunks, some of which could be in a chemical or water slurry, and pump it into the plasma furnace.
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The landfill in Westminster, owned by the city of Fitchburg, is the fifth Waste Management facility in Massachusetts to host a gas-to-energy plant, and the first owned and operated by the company. Waste Management this summer launched a five-year program to build 60 gas-to-energy plants at its US landfills and generate 230 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 230,000 homes.
That, of course, is just a tiny slice of the nation's electrical needs. The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, for example, can generate nearly 700 megawatts alone. In New England, small projects such as gas-to-energy plants, account for less than 1 percent of electricity generation, according to ISO-New England, the company that manages the region's power grid.
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The Westminster plant, nestled at the foot of the landfill hill, will produce power at about the same cost as wind turbines, about 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour, but with one important advantage, said Thomas Murray, Waste Management's district manager for Eastern and Central Massachusetts. The power is steady, instead of intermittent.
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