| Which post? It's hard to believe something like that gets a net energy yield from burning the syngas, also technologies around syngas seem to struggle when competitive fuels are available. The construction material bit is definite downcycling and even that sort of plasma torch might destroy PFAS it is (i) not going to destroy or isolate toxic metals like like and (ii) it is not going to extract various precious materials that are widely dispersed in waste: so low-value outputs can't really be good. I've heard that the plasma torch can be tuned up to separate elements, at least coarsely, and if it could produce high value products it would be a big help. My understanding is there really is no shortage of landfill space there is more of a political unwillingness to build more landfills. There is a huge interest in a "circular economy" but that precludes downcycling and of course making products recyclable is a start. Another I find interesting is that very similar chemistry is being proposed for battery recycling as is used for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, it seems a technology similar to PUREX could be tuned up to extract just about anything out of a mixture of everything in the periodic table but probably not economically. Similarly there are all the "pyroprocessing" techniques based on molten salts and such that are not so discriminatory as PUREX but more so than the plasma torch. |
My inquiry basically amounts to whether anyone is working on these problems. There was a big push 10-20 years ago, but it seems people have given up.
There is plenty of land for landfills, but nobody wants them nearby. The bigger problem, however, is that in the long run, the encapsulations will all fail. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. Until then, there are ongoing maintenance costs (such as mowing because you can’t let trees get root) that can add up quickly.
Someone has to work on this technology because it will eventually be needed for remediations (it already is needed for old, unlined landfills). It needs to capture the high-value metals (as you mentioned) and it needs to be economical in terms of initial capital costs as well as being at least energy neutral.
It doesn’t necessarily have to produce net energy since it can generate revenue the same way a landfill does (tipping fees), but it would be nice to at least get close to energy break even.
Anyway, I guess people have given up on this problem for now, sadly.