WEBVTT - Weird Ways to Generate Electricity 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:15.040 Forward Thinking. Welcome to Forward Thinking, the audio podcast where 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:16.880 we talk about the future and the things we need 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.079 to take in consideration, because of course, the future is 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.520 where we will spend the rest of our lives. I'm 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.919 Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Vocaldon, and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.080 future events such as these will concern you in the future. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.960 That's right, that's right. We're just going to quote Edwood 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.680 movies for the rest of this episode. Actually that's not true. 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.159 We're going to talk about energy and electricity and waste 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.600 and ways that we can be smarter about generating electricity 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.240 and hopefully managing the waste problem that we have while 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.680 trying to create electricity. In a previous episode, we talked 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.320 about fusion, which is where you fuse to light atoms 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.120 together and in the process you release quite a bit 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.560 of energy in the form of heat, which then turns 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.480 water into steam, and that steam then turned steam turbines, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:09.600 which then connected to electrical generators creates electricity. Yeah right, right, 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:11.160 which which is a lot more efficient than anything that 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.840 we have today, um like like nuclear fission right right. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:16.720 If we can, if we can get fusion to work 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.959 as promise, we have to make sure that the reactions 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.880 themselves are giving off enough energy that it's more than 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.120 what was required for us to get that reaction started 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.240 in the first place. That's where we're kind of hitting 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.760 the wall right now. We don't know for sure that 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.880 we can do that. So fusion is a great possibility, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.080 and I think it's it's an excellent place to do research. 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.680 But we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket. Yes, no, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.400 don't put all your electro eggs in one energy basket, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.119 as I said, right, because that could be a big problem. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.120 Think about this. I mean, imagine that even if we 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.640 are able to get a positive energy gain factor and 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.080 a fusion reactor within a hundred years, there's no guarantee 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.080 that will make it that long unless we look at 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.920 al Yeah. So so fusion may not work at all, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.640 which means that we need to look into alternatives anyway, 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.239 and if it does work, it may be decades there. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.720 So either way, looking into alternatives where we maximize our 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.000 production of electricity, which is really what we're talking about here, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.519 and we minimize the waste that's going to be important 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.800 because we don't if we if in a hundred years 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:28.720 we get fusion, but the world is not really a 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.640 livable space anymore. It's not going to be so pleasant 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.079 for the human race anyway, so we have to look 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.480 into these alternatives. Well, Jonathan, I like the way you 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.120 put that with in terms of maximizing and minimizing, because 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.799 I think a lot of the innovations that are going 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.200 to get us into the future, um aren't just you know, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.680 crazy new ideas that nobody has ever heard of before, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.360 you know, like a completely out of left field new technology. 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.120 A lot of it is just going to be um 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.079 finding smarter, more efficient ways to do the thing this 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.120 we already do. Sure, Yeah, yeah, definitely looking for energy 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.240 where we can find it. And I mean we've got 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.520 lots of examples of this and things like you know, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.760 the the improvement of efficiency and wind turbines and solar farms, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.040 but those have been talked about a lot nausea. Yeah, 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:18.760 And one of the one of the basic problems with 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.960 creating energy is that we don't have an infante supply 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.960 of coal or oil or uranium or any of the 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.520 other things that we're currently using to produce it. Right, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.040 And just in case anyone wants to write in and 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.240 yell creating electricity, we know energy can either be created 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.600 nor destroyed. We can only convert mass into energy, which 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.960 is still not creating it. It's just a transformation. Yeah yeah, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.760 you know, Hey, I obey the laws of physics, all right, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.760 so don't send them after me. But one of the 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.640 things that Joe found out when he was researching this episode, 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.480 I mean, Joe wrote the video episode about energy and 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:04.640 you discovered an interesting approach to making nuclear fission reactions 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.480 more efficient, because that's one of the problems with nuclear fission. Right. Well, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.600 so we've had nuclear fission for years and years, but um, 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.320 there are a lot of problems with it. It creates 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.400 really really toxic nuclear waste that you have to protect, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.680 you know, you lock it up in graphite beams and 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.880 bury it underground under a mountain. Right. It's it's all, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.440 it's all so dangerous that it's technically the as soon 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.640 as it's created, it belongs to the government. It belongs 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.440 to the Department of Energy to right, Yeah, that's exactly 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.040 who I want to have access to all the most 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.599 dangerous things in the world, right, And then there are 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.720 and then there's the fact that we're not really getting 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:46.760 all of the energy that we can out of these 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.599 fuel rods. I mean, so what do you what do 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.880 you use to cause a reaction and a fission reactor 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.080 and your standard nuclear power plant you have fuel rods 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.920 that are full of tiny uranium pellets refined URANIU. Yeah, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.200 it's not just highlighting rich yeah exactly. Um, that you 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.960 use to you set off a reaction in them, and 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.920 that that creates a fission reaction that releases a lot 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.240 of energy, heats water, and creates your electricity. Um. The 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.640 problems we've said so far waste um not the most 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.680 efficient reaction. Also, there's a big danger as we learned 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:26.600 from the Fushima incident during the earthquake Noble and three 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.640 Mile Island, although that wasn't the meltdown. But yeah, but 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.440 so uh, these reactors are potentially very dangerous. You have 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.200 to be extremely careful with them. Is there a way 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.560 to get around this? And that's where the waste annihilating 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:45.120 molten salt reactor from Transitomic comes in. It's a cool name. Yeah, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.200 it just rolls off the tongue. As I said in 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.200 in the episode yeah, I like to call it wamser. 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.880 You know, wams are waste annihilating molten salt reaction. Then 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.200 you don't get to say annihilating and annihilating annihilating. Yeah, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.960 well I say that so frequently in my daily life. 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.920 But yeah, the idea here is to try and maximize 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.000 that efficiency. In fact, Transatomic claims on their website that 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:12.560 the conventional nuclear reactors that use fission reactions only capture 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.920 about three of the potential fission energy and a given 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.560 amount of uranium before the uranium has to be removed 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:24.240 from the reactor or else you're in danger of a meltdown. Uh. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:29.520 Their design, again, the company claims, will capture of the 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.159 remaining energy that would have otherwise been lost. That's pretty yeah, 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.719 that's that's that's incredibly more efficient if that. In fact, 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:43.560 if you buy their claim, it combines several existing technologies. 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.760 It um so the waste annihilating molten salt reactor. It 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.800 uses this, uh, this molten salt. You might ask, what 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.240 is molten salt? Well, you don't usually encounter molten salt 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.200 in your day to day life, but um, but in 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.880 this case, it's it's not um molten salt doesn't like 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.000 become the fuel or something like that. Molten salt is 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.960 what this reactor uses to manage its heat. Yeah, as 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.920 you are using the uranium in that initial fission reaction, 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.320 you are getting nuclear waste as a result. You dissolve 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.520 the nuclear waste or rather transitomic would dissolve the nuclear 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:25.200 waste within this molten salt, which manages the heat. And 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.080 it means that if you want to really simplify it, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.640 it means that the reactor can safely maintain the temperature 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.520 it needs to continue to turn water into steam to 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.840 turn those steam turbines and generate electricity. So you're you 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.400 are really extending the useful life out of that uranium. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.520 And uh, as a result, less of the uranium is 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.400 left behind. And uranium that's the that's the radioactive material 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.680 that is so dangerous. Less nuclear waste at the yeah, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.560 the the or at least less radioactive waste. I mean, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.120 however you wanted to find it, it's gonna be Le's 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.280 radioactive waste. And from the estimates I saw, it reduces 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.600 the amount of time where this radioactive waste is dangerous 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.000 from the thousands of years two around three hundred years. 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:16.200 Still longer than anyone's comfortable lifespan, obviously, but that's a 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.480 huge difference from this. You know, it won't be safe 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.080 to go near for ten thousand years because marking that 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.440 barrel is difficult. Well, it also means that if you're 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.960 able to build these reactors, then it's there's the potential 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.439 of taking nuclear waste that has already been generated and 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.720 using that as a fuel, which there are tons and 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.040 tons of just kind of lying about. Really, I mean, well, 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:43.200 I hope it's that. Yeah, I'm thinking about some cities 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.800 I visited where I thought barrels of nuclear waste would 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.760 not seem out of place. But I would like to 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.280 think that they are mostly confined in fairly secure, according 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:57.200 to the to the documentary Duke Newcomb's according to Duke Newcomb, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.960 they are a tasty shake. Um. Yeah. I know. Something 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:02.640 else that I thought was interesting, this is just sort 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.720 of an aside, is that the company has three founders. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.520 Two of them are M. I. T. Students, and the 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.800 third is Rust Wilcox, who was the former CEO of 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.480 e INK. And I never would have thought of electronic 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.880 ink and uh, nuclear fission going hand in hand. But 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.720 it's interesting because you know, e ink is all about 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.520 efficiency to it's this idea of that you create a 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:29.960 state of the ink, so it's displaying either a a 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.360 neutral side or a dark side to the screen, and 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.120 it maintains that until you change the state of the 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.320 electrostatic field, which means that you know, once you establish it. Yeah, 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.480 you establish it and it stays that way. That's why 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.720 if you're using an e reader, it's not using energy 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.440 until you turn the page, so in between page turns, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.320 that's that's why those batteries last forever, because it's not 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.560 using a lot of electricity. So in that case, that's 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:57.679 the only thing I can think of that's similar between 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.160 the two. This isn't a new idea, I don't think. 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.240 I think that they were first proposed to power bombers, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.800 and one was operated back in the sixties and seventies 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.079 at a Gridge National Labs, So it's it's been around 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:10.720 for a minute, but just you know, not in a 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.040 there are newer and better designs, I think, right, exactly, Yeah, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:16.959 Because again, if it's one of those things where it's 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.840 a a modest increase in efficiency, it may not be 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.679 worth the expense of turning around uranium. Yeah, Yeah, design, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.600 either designing and building a reactor or refitting existing reactors 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.040 to be able to to use this sort of methodology. Um, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.720 you have to demonstrate that it's of an incredible value 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.800 before that becomes you know, economically feasible. Well, and as 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:42.960 we mentioned before, part of the value also of a 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.200 molten salt reactor is that they say that it is 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.240 much less vulnerable to meltdown right right, right, Yeah, it 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.960 would stop the reactor. It wouldn't have the potential to 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.600 explode the way that. Yeah, essentially, it wouldn't have the 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.040 potential for the uranium to reach a temperature that the 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.960 reactor itself would be unable to contain. Um. That's generally, 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.280 I mean the idea that I get from it. So, 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.040 uh so it's it's got good potential and you know, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.439 it cuts down on waste. So we wanted to talk 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.199 about another kind of technology. Yeah, this isn't the only 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.280 technology like this, right that both cuts down on waste 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.280 and get something back out of it. Yeah, So so 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.560 what you're you're referring to, I assume is plasma gasification, 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.600 which also sounds really cool. These things have great names 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.400 plasma waste converters. All Right, you know, I write for 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.240 how stuff works dot com and one of the very 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.440 first articles I wrote was about how plasma waste converters work. 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.520 And as a result, I got to actually go and 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.040 speak with some of the thought leaders in plasma waiste converters. 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.640 I got to watch footage. Actually somewhere, I have a 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:53.240 piece of slag from a plasma waste converter reaction. You 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.280 might want to explain what slag is, Yeah, I will, 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.880 I will, so so alright, So, plasma waste converters are 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.560 all designed to get rid of garbage and convert it 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.199 into one of two things. Anything that is non organic, 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.000 meaning it is not carbon based, gets liquefied. All right. 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.360 This liquid stuff ends up being inert, so there's not 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:17.920 anything toxic about it. Uh. And when it cools, you know, 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.360 either if you cool it by air, then it turns 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.880 into this kind of rocky substance that looks like obsidian 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.439 or volcanic glass um, And that's the slag. If you 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.560 cool it in water, by the way, it beats up 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.400 into little pebbles. And if you run compressed air through it, 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:34.800 which I got to see a video of, and boy 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.280 was that terrifying because it was actually a dude with 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.960 a hose compressed air, standing next to a stream of 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.439 molten slade. I mean it looks like lava as well 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.960 as like this molten slags pouring out of a spigot 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.720 and he's blowing compressed air through it, making these these 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.920 strands of of slag which, when they cool through the air, 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.520 become this sort of fluffy substance that apparently is incredibly 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:02.080 efficient as an in slator. And it also it also 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.400 floats some water and it soaks up oil. So you 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.079 could even use this to help soak up oil in 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.839 an oil spill if you wanted to. It's what was 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.280 it called rock wool? That's it. It's all coming back 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:14.920 to me. It's been years since I've written this article. 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.600 But anyway, so this sounds great. I mean, why why 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:19.480 don't we have these on every street corner? Well, well, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.160 before I even get there, I haven't even gotten to 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.040 the really cool part yet. Well, I want to know 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.040 what creates the heat that liquefies this. I haven't gotten 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.880 to that. Yea, just go John and talk about the 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.640 other half. I just said the non organic, what about 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.960 the organic? That's the question you should be asking questions Okay, 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.559 here's what happens. The organic stuff, anything that's carbon based, gasifies, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.439 so it turns into a gas. That's because the incredible 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.240 amount of energy you are applying to this stuff in 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.160 the form of heat, turns it almost instantaneously into gas. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.160 Now that gas you can then put through chemical scrubbers. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.120 You have to cool it down first. You put it 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.160 through a cooling system. So the gas, because the gas 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.319 is incredibly hot when it when it first goes through 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.840 the system, you cool it down and in that process 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:03.800 you can actually capture some of that heat and turn 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.480 water into steam and generate electricity that way. But you 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.200 can also scrub it with other chemicals, removing some of 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.040 the harmful elements out of it, making it alert. And 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.040 the rest of what you have left is a synthetic 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.280 gas that can be used as fuel. So those are 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.440 your two outcomes. Is gas that can be used as 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.960 fuel and inert slag cool stuff. So what makes this 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.800 heat is a plasma torch, and so plasma is an 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.800 ionized gas. It's a gas with free roaming ions, so 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.040 that means electrons are also free roaming in this gas. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.800 It burns an incredible temperature. We're talking like surface of 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:41.880 the sun or hotter degrees something like that. Something like that. Yeah, 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.240 and and at that temperature you're breaking those chemical bonds 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.040 and that's what's current making everything either melt or gasify 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.080 again depending upon what it's made out of. So you 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.360 have to provide energy to the plasma torch so it 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.120 will maintain this plasma field, this very hot field, and 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.360 that's what you know, that's what makes this thing go. 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.080 You use use the cooling system around the reactor, which 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.640 again can capture off that heat and use that to 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.640 help generate electricity. And assuming you have enough carbon material 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:12.760 in the garbage that you're processing, you can create enough 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.120 synthetic gas to act as fuel to run the whole 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.800 system and even potentially, if you have enough of it, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.960 sell electricity back to the grid, So you would actually 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:28.760 be generating electricity by not really burning but processing garbage. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.400 It also has a couple of other phases. You usually 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.000 would um have a phase where you try to retrieve 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.800 any metal before going through this system, so casting on 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.480 metal you could actually recycle into other stuff and otherwise 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.440 it's just gonna melt down. Um, So you would try 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.440 and have to sort the garbage first, and usually grind 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.600 the stuff up. You've got some heavy grinders that grind 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.840 everything up into little pieces before it gets exposed to 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.640 the plasma torch, because then you've you've really cut down 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.160 on all that surface area and make it a lot 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:02.560 easier to process it. And reason why they aren't everywhere, Lauren, 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.120 to get to your question, not gonna answer Joe's question 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.400 about how it does this is because it's it would 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.080 be very expensive to build these things, all right. So 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.400 building the plant is expensive, you could co locate it 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.920 at a dump essentially like any place where there's a landfill. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.120 You could put it at the landfill. I mean there 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.320 it is right there next to its fuel source. And 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.000 in fact, most of the figures I saw was that 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.440 once you get to a certain size of a facility 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.680 for a plasma waste converter plant, you would be able 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.680 to not only take in all the garbage that was 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.320 coming in from a community, but in fact start to 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.480 mine any existing landfills. So in other words, you would 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.800 take care of the garbage problem and remove the landfills. Eventually, 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.560 over several decades worth of time, the landfills would get 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.680 smaller and smaller until you had reclaimed them. And then 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.920 the plasma wast facility would just take in incoming garbage. Uh. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.800 And it wouldn't produce as much energy at that point obviously, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.000 because you know, part of its fuel supplies gone. But 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.080 in a way, that's a good problem to have because 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.880 it's taken away this environmental concern that we have. So 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.280 and in addition to this usable gas that you get 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.440 from it that you can burn, the slag is also useful, right, yeah, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.479 you can. You can use it as aggregate, you can 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.280 use it in building materials. You can use it to 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.920 freak out your co workers if you like. I had 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.080 a like I said, I had a small sample of 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.080 this inside a plastic box. And uh, one of our 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.399 former co workers, his name's John Fuller. He sat next 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.560 to me at in our cubicles, and I had this little, 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.160 you know, clear plastic box that had this piece of 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:42.400 what looked like volcanic rock in it. And he picked 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:43.879 it up one day and he was looking at the 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.800 box and I said, yeah, it's slag from from a 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.679 plasma waist converter. I got it. When I was interviewing 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.480 the guy who bought this idea up. He says, oh, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:54.520 that's so cool, and he pops the top of it 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:59.159 off and puts the rock in his hand like oh what, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.879 Oh no, I gotta make some calls like oh no, 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.480 and he started freaking out like no, I'm just kidding you. Um. 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.199 But Yeah, for a while there, he thought that he 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:15.000 had excellently unleashed the zombie plague. Yeah, John has moved 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.240 on to bigger and better things, where hopefully his coworkers 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.840 don't make him think that he's created the zombie apocalypse. 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.320 Uh that I just couldn't resist. The other thing I 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.359 should mention is that plasma waste converters are not the 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.040 solution to all of our energy problems. They could help 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.800 offset energy production, but but they wouldn't be producing enough 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.520 electricity to replace things like, you know, fossil fuels or 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:38.960 solar plants or anything like that. It just would help, 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.520 of course not. But the point I think we're making 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.960 here is that every little bit actually does help. Yeah, 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.680 and it also ends up impacting another problem, the environmental 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.600 issues of Yeah. Some some of the detractors of it 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.600 have said that, well what if what if we have 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.200 these everywhere and then nobody recycles, And I think that 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.880 that's kind of missing the scope of writing if nobody recycles, 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:05.520 but there the recycling thing. Yeah, that's a weird argument. 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.280 I can't imagine why you would make that, Like I 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.479 guess maybe people in Portland. Well, no, I don't know 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.080 the economics of it. There may be a reason why 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.119 recycling is important, like if you want to obviously, if 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.399 you're converting all these different things to just slag and 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.840 gas um, there may be materials that we want to 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.080 keep in quantity if there, If there are, recycling would 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.280 be important for any material that requires a great deal 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.639 of energy for us to access or convert into whatever 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.359 it is we use. So, for example, um glass not 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.200 a problem. Glass is made out of sand. We have 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.840 sand and heat and that's easy to do. So glass. Actually, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.639 I've heard lots of arguments that saying that recycling glass 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.359 actually doesn't make that much sense because the amount of 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.960 energy needed to recycle the glass is greater than it 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.439 would be to create new glass. So the better thing 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.679 to do with glass is not just used it and 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.720 throw it away, but to reuse. Because we hear about 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.600 reuse and recycle, this would be a case for reusing. 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.920 But things like plastics that's different, you know you or 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.600 aluminium would be different too, so but again, the facility 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:18.240 would would separate some stuff out already, so you know, 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:23.280 it's it probably would not remove the necessity for recycling completely, 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.399 but it would reduce the uh, the importance of it. 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.639 But we don't have them, so it's kind of a 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.800 moot point. I mean, there's only a few facilities like 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.840 this that exist in the world. They do exist there. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.120 It's not like this is just in theory. There are 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.520 actual plasma waste converters out there. There's just only a 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.160 few of them. You know. One of the funny things 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:47.080 that happens when you start thinking about energy um and 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.040 efficiency is you can look around the world and you 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:54.600 can just see that energy is wasted everywhere. And I'm 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.240 not talking about just leaving the lights on the kinds 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.080 of ways that we normally think about wasting in g 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.520 I'm talking about what happens to the energy, the impact 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.760 energy when you put your foot down on the floor 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.280 and you take a step. Yeah, you're you know, you're 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.960 not You're not press the keys on your computer, you know, right, 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.880 you're not doing any useful work, like you're not like 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.040 things that things that are actually an expensive energy aren't 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.639 being recaptured in any meaningful way. And uh so what 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.399 if you could find a way to capture that energy 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.920 so that all these little things we do throughout the day, 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.920 but everyone pretty much does them, what if we could 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.240 recapture that energy and put it to you know, some 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.080 other use, like creating electricity. Right, is, people have already 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.520 thought of doing this kind of thing in cars, right 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.679 when you have like regenerative breaking, the brakes used to 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.080 just just wasted energy and yeah, just friction and heat 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.359 and that's all you would lose, all that enage just 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.480 going out the window. But if you have regenerative breaking, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.120 the car manufacturers figured out, oh well, we can actually 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.120 reclaim some of that energy, and you is it for something, right, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.320 which means that you extend the battery life of an 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.600