How green is plasma gasification?
Westinghouse’s website calls plasma gasification a “clean and efficient option to convert various feedstocks into energy in an environmentally responsible manner.” The website lists the following benefits of plasma gasification: • No bottom ash or fly ash that requires treatment or landfill disposal is generated. • Metals and non-combustible inorganics are melted and captured in an environmentally benign slag, which can be used as construction aggregate. • Each plasma gasification application will have a differing environmental profile, but in general terms a plasma gasification facility will have very low emissions of NOx, SOx, dioxins and furans. • In the plasma gasification process CO2 can be captured and sequestered. Westinghouse’s website quotes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as saying plasma gasification is a technology “which potentially can use various types of waste, produce electricity and hydrogen without emitting dioxin, furan and mercury, is plasma arc technolog
