Burning garbage in Tokyo

NDTV takes a tour of the Toshima garbage incineration plant in Tokyo:

Applying Japan’s latest green technology, Toshima Incineration Plant is one of more than a dozen garbage plants in the Tokyo metropolitan area that have recently started burning plastic waste.

The plant’s control center closely monitors the levels of toxins at each stage of the burning process.

This incinerator operates at 1600 degrees Fahrenheit, or 900 Centigrade. A state-of-the-art air filter system removes almost every single ash and toxic substance from the air before it leaves the plant. What goes out of the 70-story-tall smoke stack is just steam and a very tiny amount of carbon dioxide.

And the byproducts are all recyclable—even profitable, bringing in nearly a million dollars a year.

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http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

Would be great if they could turn those landfills bac into normal land over time, but according to the clip, the incineration plant burn less garbage than the amount produced each day, so the landfills will continue to fill up, only at a lower rate.
Jerry

if they have this technology, why dont they actually use this to produce some electricity. This would surely eliminate more garbage than the city produces

me

…they do. Did you even watch the video?

Jerry

well i did watch the video
what i’m trying to say is that they should make this more of a priority in producing electricity, rather than other forms

Level3

Engineering economics. [Or just common sense]

For the purpose of power generation, this kind of plant is usually made because it’s politically popular and can get the funds to compensate the inability to compete economically against conventional power plants.
However, purely as a solution for the garbage problem in Japan, it has value, and the little bit of extra electricity is a bonus, but not something you could power an entire country on.

Japan plans to have 5 Gigawatts(GW) of power from incineration by 2010.
[BTW that's enough send a time-travelling Delorean on 4 trips with a bit to spare]
But Japan’s national energy demand is about 1000 GW.

These plants run at higher temperatures than standard plants, so corrosion, and thus maintenance and lifespan [thus, the cost] are a bigger problem.

Maxim

This looks fantastic. If the garbage can be turned into something useful like pavements and other building materials, then this makes me very optimistic.

Obviously, more funds need to be dedicated to building such plants. If they build more and bigger plants, this could eliminate the whole landfill problem and even free up some much needed land.

BTW, this thing can be easily done in America as well, if half of the money they spend on the military each year is put into that kind of technology.

Jerry

how about half of the money is used to build these power plants, and the byproduct is used to pave new roads in the war-torn countries?

Burning garbage in Tokyo

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