The ability to convert garbage to electricity takes care of two of the major challenges to going Off The Grid. A garbage to electricity power plant is probably just a cost effective as a home wind mill or a home solar array. The problem that arises is the same as any other alternative energy. What do you do when there is no garbage, wind, or sun?
Yes, the concept of Cold Fusion emitting no radiation is fantastic, and from what I read, it may just remain a fantasy. Regular Fusion is making some progress, but may be decades before anything useful comes out of it.
I like the backyard generator idea, and this concept appears to be sound, the gassificaton process produces no greenhouse gas since it is burned in an oxygen starved environment. The remaining gasses simply run a generator.
On a large scale I understand this is already being done.
The problem with the backyard scale unit is the cost. This System if sold commercially would have to meet, city codes, federal EPA requirments, UL, CE etc. This would crank up the cost of the system. More complex hardware, controls and safety is required here than on a solar cell array for example. If the price tag could be brought down to say under $10K and produce 2+ kilowatts, I could see how it may be feasable. After all we do burn fuel hauling away garbage, why not generate electricity close to where it is being used...
I don't think it would be economically feasible on an individual basis. My interest is in a system that reduces the amount of solid waste and is environmentally responsible. I don't believe backyard unit would ever pay itself off. We have a garbage-to-steam facility here, but I haven't seen any information about its output.
I'll admit that I'm not enough of a country boy to raise chickens, but my neighbor has some bees, and I've never had a problem there. He always brings me a couple of frames of honey every year and everything that blooms at my house seems well pollinated. I hardly ever see a bee.
Fusion Jr. sounds like a good backyard attempt for home energy creation. I wonder how complicated the purification process is before the gas is usable or how pure the gases need to be. I have thought about this in terms of using waste gas from home septic systems that are vented to the atmosphere. Of course this has been done in commercial waste water treatment plants but how about at the home scale. All the homes in my neighborhood have septic tanks and it would be great to do something useful with that "free" combustible gas.
I have to agree with Doug. This is not something I'd want to see in my neighborhood, environmentally P.C. (politically correct) or not. I would think there'd be safety issues, unsightly issues, you name it. I thought the influx of my neighbors now raising chickens and honey bees in their yards was bad--this could put me over the edge.
My reaction is "why bother?" Plenty of towns ship trash to municipal reactors that burn trash and convert it to fuel in an efficient and clean manner. I seriously doubt that a chemical fusion reactor in your house is environemtnally friendly, or even efficient for that matter. Would it be "cool" to have a nuclear fusion unit that converts trash to fuel? I don't think so. Not in my house. It's news to me that nuclear fusion would operate on trash.
A couple of the links weren't working (or maybe it is my lousy connection today) but I'd be interested to see the end result of the operation. Does it actually incinerate the garbage/waste products and leave ash? How toxic (or not) is that ash? What is the efficiency of the combustion? What about output to the air in the event the combustion gasses are not recaptured. Could it be modified to operate on a large scale (factory or small community) to make a significant reduction in landfill input? Overlook me. . .I'm always scheming to be the next Thomas Edison.
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