Energy From Our Garbage

(from Waste Not of Iowa's site:   http://www.wastenotiowa.org )

Why bury energy?

Locked up in the waste we send to landfills is an enormous amount of BTUs. These BTUs can be recycled into useful forms including energy. This can be in the form of heat, gases and electricity. Citizens and local governments all over the world are getting excited about the possibilities technology can bring, especially with high energy prices and reliance on unstable foreign governments. There are successful existing applications and new ways to use proven technologies that are moving past the research stage, being developed and built. 

Plasma Arc

One technology that many are enthused about is Plasma Arc technology. It uses an electric arc much like lightning that creates high temperatures virtually destroying waste and converting it to gases and inert materials that can be used to make useful products. This is all done using only part of the energy from the waste itself. The rest is used for productive purposes.