WEBVTT - Please Listen to How Plasma Waste Converters Work 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.320 Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.360 dot com. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.120 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, guest producer. Noel is here. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.880 Noel's moved in. Yeah, so what that that cod is 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:27.479 on the plan? He works constantly. Uh. You know what 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.800 my superhero nickname was as a child. Uh, I'll tell 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.360 you plasma Boy. No, it wasn't. I'm just kidding. That 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:44.520 was a weird joke. Why we're talking about plasma Plasma boy? Yeah, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.320 like a radioactive man na plasma boy. Yeah, but it 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.839 wasn't plasma boy. It was what was it? What was 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:59.680 the Sidekicks name? Radioactive Man Sidekicks? Uh? Now I want 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:06.319 to know, dude. Well, that's a band, I know, but 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.520 I wonder if it's based on that maybe. I don't know. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.560 We'll find out, won't we. Well, we'll look it up 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.720 and then we'll find out with a million emails. So, um, 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.160 plasma boy. Huh. I wish you must have an affinity 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.560 for this episode. Then it's great, Chuck. You know, when 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.480 lightning strikes the earth, we did a pretty awesome podcast 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.319 on lightning. Do you remember we talked about how it 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:37.080 literally rips the sky open. It rips the atmosphere open, 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.920 and as it's traveling down through this ripped open atmosphere, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.520 the air on either side of this stuff is superheated 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.960 to about twenty thousand degrees. It's more than three times 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.840 the surface temperature of the sun celsius. I should say celsius, 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.000 not even fair enhog. It's about twelve grand celsius. Roughly, 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.840 it's super hot, right, I'm sorry. Fare Kneite does a 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:05.360 fare kneit. Yeah, twelve grand fare kneit. Yeah, Okay. At 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:10.399 any rate degrees is lightning. And this when the air 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.760 is superheated, it takes on what's commonly called the fourth 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:18.840 state of matter, plasma. Right, so you've got solid, boring 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:25.959 liquid gas. Awesome, Okay, but plasma is super awesome gas. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.840 It's it's a bit like a gas, and usually it 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.480 starts out as a gas, but it it holds an 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:38.480 electro magnetic field, or creates an electromagnetic field, and it 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.680 holds an electrical charge. It has free roaming electrons. It's 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.639 running through it doing all sorts of crazy stuff. It 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.080 just basically breaks gas into like this, this crazy, weird 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.239 different type of fluid and that's plasma and it's awesome 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:59.760 ionized gas. Yes, pretty good stuff. Uh, super high tempts, 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.440 like you are saying. And because it's a super high attempt, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:05.680 what it can do is it it can break down, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.320 it can it can it can cause something solid to 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:14.480 undergo what's called molecular dissociation, which means it's not just 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:19.600 burning something, it's not melting something. It's actually exposing it 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.360 to so much heat that the molecular bonds break apart 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:29.160 and it becomes a pile of its components and it 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.639 breaks it down to from its compound of molecules to 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.840 its atomic components. Yeah, pretty amazing. It is very amazing. UM. 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.840 And it's like you said, it's not it's not UM 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:46.240 burning Like this process of UM using a plasma torch 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.520 to break something down to decompose it is actually what 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:55.240 it's doing. UM doesn't even need to use oxygen nope. UM. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:00.160 So that means that it's a process called pyrolysis, which 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.000 is intense, intense heat that creates decomposition in some sort 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.880 of matter, especially organic matter, and UM. As a result, 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.480 you get these byproducts. If it's a an organic piece 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.760 of materials, say like some corn stalks that are using 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:21.520 a biomass feedstock. Um, it will become something called sin gas. Right. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:26.880 And then if it's something like um old pair of 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.960 roller skates, yeah, we'll save those. First of all, they're 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.640 just not very good any longer. So the leather is 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.120 was it at one point organic? I guess it would 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.760 still be considered an organic material that turns into gas. 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.960 The metal in the skates that will turn into something 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:53.720 called slag, right, and it undergoes the process of vitrification, Yeah, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.000 it does. Vitrification is where this stuff becomes so the 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:02.480 bombs break between it so thoroughly that it becomes basically 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:06.440 a form of glass, yeah, like volcanic glass, almost at 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.600 least what it looks like, Yeah, like obsidient. So all 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.520 this sounds great. We're kind of beating around the bush 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:18.359 about what a plasma torch can do. Um, And here's 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.919 the big, the big bomb boom. Plasma torches can burn 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.320 garbage and waste. Yes. And not only that, they can 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.040 burn it without combustion, which means there's not a bunch 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:35.360 of smoke. Yeah, and they can actually harvest the energy 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.880 in that garbage in incredible ways because it turns out 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:45.240 garbage is chock full of potential energy. You can release 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.200 that energy when you burn it, like just regular incineration, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.200 but you only can maybe net about fift of the 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.479 energy that's locked into this big pile of garbage in 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.599 like a landfill, right, what a waste. With using a 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.279 plast the torch to create pyrolysis or gasification, you can 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.919 net up to eight of that energy that's locked in 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.119 their potentially crazy into garbage. So what we're talking about 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.120 is a potential future where we are using plasma torches 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.320 to create energy to sell back to the grid, to 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.680 create steam to turn those turbines, like we're always still 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.680 just knocked out that that's how you create energy these days, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.480 I'm sorry electricity. Uh, and then sell off byproducts as 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.800 well and make more money. Yes, it's it's like I 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:40.920 cannot be more excited about this. And medical waste, chemical waste, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.719 throw it in there. In fact, you know what, so 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:49.560 anything you got in their daddy, except for like radioactive material, 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.360 you gotta you gotta swine flu outbreak. Take those pig carcasses, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:59.080 you throw them into the gasification chamber. There is no 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.719 swine flu left. It is totally gone. Or how about this. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.280 I'll bring it to your farm. I'll have a small 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.760 one set up. You got a swine food outbreak, I'll 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.040 come to your farm and I'll burn up all those 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.080 nasty pigs. You've got some toxic waste. Oh well, we'll 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.200 just burn that in a gasification chamber and we'll break 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.680 it down to its innert components. It's not gonna hurt anybody, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.760 no more, little lamb. I guess we keep saying burn. Well, 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:31.000 it's really tough not to ye to see torch torch. Yeah. Nice, 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.960 all right, So let's talk. Strickland wrote this, Jonathan Strickland 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.200 of Tech Stuff, and he did a great job and 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.080 he seemed to be as excited about it as we 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.520 are when he was writing it, because how can you 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.520 not be. Uh, Let's talk about some of the parts 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.800 of these things. The first thing that he points out 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:54.320 that we should point out is that um any plasma 0:07:54.520 --> 0:08:00.000 conversion gasification facility is gonna be unique to its own knee. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.160 They're all custom built at this point, there's no standardized unit. 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.560 There are some companies that are starting to like westing 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.000 House has some that you can just like what amounts 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.000 to off the shelf. The backyard gasifier pretty much. Yeah, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.880 they I think they have like three different models, although 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.160 I'm sure they will custom build you whatever you want. 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.080 You're probably right. Uh But anyway, when he wrote this, 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.560 they weren't super standardized, and that's good that we're going 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.080 towards that. But um so what we're gonna talk about it, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.280 you know, sort of depends on the system. But what 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.839 you're probably gonna have is conveyor belt that's gonna move 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.600 the garbage into the converter. Yeah, it's gonna play that 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.760 Bugs Bunny Powerhouse song. Oh man. Sometimes they will pre 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.679 treat the stuff like although you could, if you had 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.040 a big enough um machine, you could throw an entire 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.000 car in it, let's say, but sometimes it's more efficient 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.640 to break that car down and have a pilot, tires 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.840 and a pile of scrap metal and break it down 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.800 to its components, just to make it more efficient. Yeah, 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:01.800 because it's gonna use a lot less energy to break 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.679 it down into smaller parts and then feeded into the 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:10.160 the plasma torch incinerator. Then it will to just torch 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.240 it with the torch because these things use a lot 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.000 of energy, a lot of energy. They probably saved that 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.400 for when the investors come by right there like watching 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.120 now you see it? Now you don't. Uh, you have 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.080 your furnace, of course, and Strickland says, this is where 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.840 the magic happens um because you don't need oxygen. It 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:35.840 is air locked and airtight. Um junk goes in, but 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.560 the heat doesn't escape into the atmosphere or the gases 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.560 or the byproducts, which again that is really saying something 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.079 about the material science that's gone into this, because these 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.600 things are burning it like or heated to six thousand 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:54.760 degrees fahrenheigh again celsius, like the temperature of the sun 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.199 in this little in this canister right here. It's amazing. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.960 I'm surprised plasma weapons for real. I think it's really 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.360 great that they don't. I looked into it. It's like 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.960 the realm of video games of course, like plasma guns 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:12.560 and stuff. Uh So, if you have a furnace, which 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:14.520 you will, you're gonna have the plasma torch, which is 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.440 in the lower like half of the furnace, let's say. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.480 And they're also gonna have some drainage for that slag 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.360 and some venting for the gas, and it's going to 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.960 be water cooled. Yeah. One of the things that came 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.720 across to me and this researching this is these things 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.760 frequently have like really elegant designs. Right, So, like you 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.720 have a drain for the slag, which again is the 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.080 molten metal that's broken down to like it's constituent parts. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.760 It's inorganic material and depending on how you treat it 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:47.679 will turn into glass or sand or nodules right asphalt um. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.720 And then you have the gas going up, but you 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.520 also and you're draining off the slag, but you're also 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.680 keeping some in because it forms basically a coke bed 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.839 that keeps the furnace hot, which you have to use 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.560 less energy in your in your plasma torch, just like 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.800 having your own little lava bed just sort of sitting 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.280 there up. So that's pretty cool, but eventually you're gonna 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.200 probably want to get some of the slag out of 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.000 there because you're gonna do cool things with it, which 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.520 we'll talk about later. The plasma torch as themselves are clever, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:25.480 amazing little instruments. It's basically a uh it's a lightning creator, 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.760 like they use an electrical arc. They push usually just 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.160 plain old air through it so that this electric charge 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.600 heats the air to these six thousand degrees, turns it 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.640 into plasma and then that's what's directed into the furnace. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.120 It is very crazy, but that's that's what they're doing. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.560 It's a little water cooled torch that that gets super hot. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.400 Also doesn't use any kind of oxygen for combustion. Right. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.160 And also these things you want to turn me on 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:00.360 with electrical stuff is show me a system that powers self, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.679 right that I just love that more than anything in 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.920 these facilities, Um, I mean they've got they've got excess 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.079 energy to spare afterwards, not only can they power themselves 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.840 in a lot of cases, they're selling uh back to 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.760 the grid. Right. So, once you've got this initial input 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.320 where you get this thing going online and you heat 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.240 that plasma torch up for the first time, the moment 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.160 you start feeding feedstock into it, which in this case 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.720 is garbage plain old municipal solid waste from their lands 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.240 back to the future. Right, Um, Right, when you start 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.360 feeding that, it starts to produce energy. And the way 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.640 that it does that that gas that escapes sing Gaess, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.800 let's talk about sing gas, dude. Sincas is a beautiful, amazing, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:50.280 elegant thing. It has, it's combustible and it's untreated form, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.800 so you could use it to burn like natural gas, 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.920 although it has about half the energy density of natural gas. 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.920 But if you're burning um garbage, it's just basically free 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.080 natural gas. The byproduct you can also treat it and 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.480 scrub it and just release it into the atmosphere is 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:11.120 innert gas. No problems with that water water scrubbed, right. 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:17.280 But when the sing gas exits the furnace, it's it 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.280 wants to expand. So if you're a very clever engineer, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.079 you'll put what's called the gas turbine right there. A 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.400 gas turbine is spun by expanding gas. Well, you've got 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.760 plenty of that stuff, right, So you've got the sing 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.640 gas going through the gas turbine spinning that so it's 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.080 a generating electricity. It's also very hot, so once it 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.959 goes through that gas turbine, it can be caught by 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.000 what's called a heat recovery steam generator, right, And that's 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.760 just got some water going through it and it uses 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:50.040 hot this hot heat gas to turn the water into steam. Well, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.480 that in turn turns another turbine. It generates even more electricity, 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:56.760 and then at the end, before you even treat it, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:58.840 you have all the sin gas that could be used 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:03.000 to fuel a austion engine to generate even more electricity, 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.160 all from burning garbage. All right, we have to take 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.280 a break because I have to peel Josh off the 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.679 ceiling because you're so excited about sin gas. All right, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:39.720 we'll be back in a second. How you feeling, buddy, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.920 He okay, I'm so excited. This might as well be 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.880 ocean currents. Oh yeah, you like that one too, huh. 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.720 All right, so we're talking about sin gas. You need 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.040 to scrub it with water. They passes through a spray 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.040 of water. You're actually cleaning gas, which is pretty interesting 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.720 as a concept. And then there are all measure of 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:03.880 filters after word, to remove acids and things like that 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.120 which do form weird byproducts like salts and salts. It's 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.440 pretty neat. If you run it through a base scrubber, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.640 it turns into salts. But there again inert like just 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:16.560 go ahead, pick up a handful and eat it. See 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.480 what happens? Probably nothing. And if you use an afterburner, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.720 sometimes they'll use a secondary burner, uh, which is actually 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.640 just natural gas flames. I guess to finish the job. 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.040 Maybe yeah, to burn off like any particulate matter in 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:35.480 the gas, like if the if them, the process didn't 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.160 the sing gas isn't like pure this This basically burns 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.200 off particular matter. Or you can scrub it too. And 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.040 if you're doing all this, you're probably just going to 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.240 release it rather than try to trap it and use 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.200 it for combustion if you're gonna scrub it. But you 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.160 do need to scrub it, especially if you're gonna release 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.160 in the atmosphere, because it does contain some pretty nasty 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.520 stuff cabium, mercury, a lot of heavy metals. Because remember 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.120 what what this process does. The plasma torch and the 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:09.040 gasification process breaks these things down into the their constituent 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:15.120 um atoms and molecules and heavy metals and and um. 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.520 Some other things are not really good for us, even 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.880 in their most basic form. So for the most part, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:25.040 it's gonna take something that chemically speaking, was once a 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.320 threat but has been broken down to its separate, innocuous 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.360 in our components. Some things, even when they're at their 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.320 most basic level, are still dangerous to us, like cadmium, 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.080 like mercury, like other heavy metals, and these things do 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.680 have to be taken out of the slag and or 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.040 the sin gas and disposed of. The thing is is, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.520 if you put a thousand tons of municipal solid waste 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:53.160 into one of these furnaces, you're only gonna get about 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:58.480 twenty tons of that stuff. So so we will still 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.640 need landfills or something like that, but it will just 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.920 be for these very um dangerous chemicals are very dangerous, 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.560 like heavy metals or something like that. But you still 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.639 got great stuff out of the other nine times. Yeah, exactly. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.080 So the byproducts we talked about, the sing gash, the slag, 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.720 and the heat are all used or not always used, 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:22.200 depends on what you're trying to do with your plant, 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.960 but they can potentially all be used. And the slag, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.640 I think you already said you're getting. So that means 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.439 the weight of your resulting slag is only of what 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.399 you started with. So you took that buick, uh, and 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.600 it now weighs what it formally weighed. You could pick 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.679 it up if you wanted, Yeah, maybe, so, probably should 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.399 wait for it to cool down. And the volume is 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.800 only about five percent of the original waste volume. Uh. 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.199 And like you said, it looks like volcanic glass, and 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.240 they can use it in asphalt and concrete. They can 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.399 pour it directly into molds and make paper stones, and 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.880 it's all of a sudden, it's a it's a it's 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.040 something that you would find at your Big Bucks hardware 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.600 store for your garden, which is pretty amazing. Another UM 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.760 potential creation that you can use slag for is to 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.919 turn into rock wool. Man, I love this stuff right like, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.560 so as the smolten slag is coming out, if you 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.959 expose it to compressed air blasts, it turns into this 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:27.440 thready very light but also very strong wool type material 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.199 like gray cotton candy. Is how um how Strickland puts it. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:33.760 And there's a lot of uses for it, Like you 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.879 can use it in hydroponics. It's a it's a growing medium. UM. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.600 You can also use it as insulation. Apparently it has 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:47.080 twice the insulating properties of UM fibery last. Yeah, it 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.359 is UM and you can also use the clean up 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.600 oil spills. That says, Yeah, this is the one that 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.920 really gets me going. It's lighter than water, so you 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:56.760 can just throw it on water and it'll sit there 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:02.840 and it's super absorbent, so it'll basicly, what they'll probably 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.480 do is contain it in something like a tube or 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.760 something and then just throw that tube in a big 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.440 circle around an oil spill. It'll float on the water 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.439 soak up the oil. Um, you just go back and 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.320 scoop up the Rockwell, yeah, I guess. So. I had 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.240 a friend that used to work and um, I need 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.359 to look that up and him up actually, because I 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.560 don't know where it went. But they were using banana 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.320 fibers to do the same thing to clean up oil spills. 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.680 Didn't we do one on oil spills? And like your friend, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:36.720 you emailed with them or something like that about it. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:38.680 I don't know, I feel like we did. It seems 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.360 like the distant past. But here's the cool thing about 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.479 the the rock will they currently use it. It's not 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.000 just something that you can only get as a byproduct 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:53.159 of creating the sin gas. It is produced by mining rocks. 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.800 You melt it down and then spin it sort of 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.320 like cotton candy, like you said, in a big machine. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.760 And here's the cool thing about the gasification though. The 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.400 way they make the rock will now it's about ten 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.720 cents I'm sorry about a dollar a pound as a 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.600 byproduct That could be sold for ten cents a pound plus. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.240 You don't have all of the um the disturbances in 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.960 the earth of mining rocks to turning the rock will 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.800 it's a byproduct of garbage that you're burning. That's great, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.760 it's amazing. This is like when win win win win, 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.639 win win win. The slag is not leachable. That's another 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.640 cool thing that I found too. So Strickland specifically said, 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.640 you can't do this with radioactive material. I have seen 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:40.119 that you can. Yeah, And what you can do is 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.760 it'll turn it into the slag the subsidian glass, and 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.480 while it's still radioactive, it's not going anywhere. It's not 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.440 going to leach out into the soil, and it shall. 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:54.800 It should be stable like this for thousands of years, 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.160 conceivably until the radioactivity is not harmful the humans any longer. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:01.480 It would be a really great You can just turn 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:06.000 it into these radioactive paver stones that yeah, that might 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.040 even glow at night. You'd have a nice little path 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.480 in your backyard and they'll glow. There's actually glass like that. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.479 I can't remember what it's technical term is, but in 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.320 the mid twentieth century there was a big trend for 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.280 radio They called it vasoline glass because it glowed about 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.280 the color of vasoline, which is weird. But you can 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.560 find cut glass like ashtrays and sculptures that glow, and 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.040 the reason they glow because they're radioactive. I think, I 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.119 know what you're talking about, really neat looking, but it's 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.040 also like, I don't know if that should be in 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:44.560 my home. I would like your own cigarette holds. All right. Uh, well, 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:47.200 let's take another break here and we'll talk about where 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.000 we are now and where we could be headed with gasification. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.200 All right, So here's what I've found in this might 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.280 not even be current. What I saw was that they're 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:27.560 currently eight functioning plasma gasification facilities in the world. That's 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.680 that sounds about right. One in Taiwan, when in Japan, 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:32.919 one in Canada, when in England, one here in the USA. 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.040 Where's the one in the US? Uh think Vero Beach, Florida. 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.320 Oh yeah, um, one in India, one in China, and 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.639 get this one, there's one on an aircraft carrier that 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:49.040 the US is using. The idea is that it's a 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:54.080 little small unit that basically just treats the on board waste. 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.359 So they envisioned the future where like cruise ships have 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.040 these things, and they don't have just dump all their 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.119 garbage in the ocean, while there's exactly you treat all 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.800 the waste, and I guess they could even sell buy 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.920 products that they wanted to. UM. There's one that's supposedly going. 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.560 I know you saw it was mothballed, right, But there's 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.480 one that's that's playing. They have like all the I 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:22.720 guess the UM licenses and certifications that they need to 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:27.000 build one in Port St. Lucy, Florida. And it's supposedly 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.280 it started out um as it was going to take 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.120 on a thousand tons of garbage a day and put 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:38.040 out UM third, it was gonna generate sixty seven megawatt 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.919 hours a day and sell thirty three of that, so 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.760 it would completely power its own operations and still have 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:49.760 thirty three megawatt hours to put out, like to sell 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:52.119 back to the grid. It's just more money that this 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.080 thing is making, right, UM. What I saw is that, 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:58.200 and I think it was like two thousand, fourteen UM. 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:00.960 It said that it was going to be about six 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:03.919 of that, so it would take in about six hundred 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:07.520 tons of garbage and generate a total output of twenty 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:12.080 two mega OTTs um but yeah, I don't know if 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.119 it's coming or not. But either way, the thing that 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.160 got me about this one, chuck, was that they planned 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:22.560 to not just accept landfill waste, but to go out 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.919 and mind existing landfills and use those things as feedstock. 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:31.720 And in fact, there was one in um uh Uashinai, 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:35.400 Japan that closed down because they ran out of feedstock. 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.040 They burned through all the garbage. Wo. Yeah, that's pretty 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:45.360 great when you're out of garbage exactly. They'll stop earlier 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:48.439 this year, I think um the world's largest plant um is. 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:50.760 They said it was near completion in May, so it 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:53.280 may be done at this point. But a company called 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:57.760 Air Products UM began processing three d and fifty thou 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:05.120 tons at this facility, creating power. Wow wait during tons. Yeah, 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:10.760 it's had enough powered for homes and uh fifty full 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:14.200 time jobs, which is not that many, not for that much, 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.960 but no, which is highly automated, I would guess, yeah, 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:19.320 which is sort of good in a way. Um, but 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.960 I guess you'd want more jobs created to this is 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.400 sort of a balancing acting, guess. Uh. And it costs 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:29.960 half a billion, five million dollars um and that is 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:33.280 one of the that's one of the stumbling blocks along 0:25:33.320 --> 0:25:35.320 the way. Strickland points out that anytime you have a 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:38.160