Plasma gasification has gained serious attention over the past four years. In 2003, when I first began learning about waste-to-energy facilities and processes, plasma was very experimental and little was widely known about it. Today there are numerous pilot plants in operation, there seem to be countless companies involved with it, and cities are considering it as a method to deal with waste.
Currently, "waste-to-energy" is practically synonymous with incineration - at least in the United States. Incineration is mature technology and it works, but because the combustion is taking place in excess air, the furnaces must be very large and the subsequent emissions control devices must be very large as well to deal with the high volumes of flue gases.
Plasma facilities can be built in very small spaces. Having small plasma gasification plants spread about a city instead of a single large incinerator in the outlying area is very attractive. It would reduce truck traffic and provide a greater opportunity to utilize waste heat from the WTE process in the form of district heating and cooling. Smaller buildings with shorter chimneys can be used and this reduces the impact on the landscape which creates greater public support (not to say that incinerators such as Brescia (Italy), Spittelau (Austria), Tokyo-Minato, and others look bad! )
If the envionmental and economic performance of plasma gasification lives up to its ideals, I believe that it will eventually replace incineration as the de-facto process in thermal waste-to-energy operations.
