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NO as it creates dioxins and other pollutants. Cleaning as part of combustion is a back-end process and it is not 100% effective, it is less efficient and large-scale combustion has its own issues such as transporting waste large distances to supply the plants. Our small, clean, efficient plants, located at local sites, minimise transport and pollutants whilst increasing power production and offsetting the use of more fossil fuels.
Chlorine needs oxygen and heat to make dioxins, but no oxygen is present at the conversion stage in the Stein Gasifier Process.
NO In many respects, thermal gasification and incineration are opposite processes. Incineration, through the presence of temperature with oxygen, can create complex structures including hazardous substances, whilst pure gasification dissociates the molecules of complex substances into simple gases. Oxydisation cannot take place as the oxygen is present at the time of gasification.
NO Despite efforts to recycle, the quantity of waste requiring disposal remains high (for example 88% of municipal solid waste went to landfill in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 2007). The gasification process cannot aid recycling as such, but coupled with a Resource Recovery Unit, it is expected that a proportion of the recyclables that would ordinarily go to landfill will be extracted.
The plant will produce dioxins. Any plant that burns chloride bearing fuels, due to the presence of oxygen, even if restricted, will produce dioxins.
We do not have oxygen present in the gasification stage so chlorine is released as a chlorine gas that is soluble and is removed in the gas scrubbing stage.
Gasification is combustion by another name.
NO because no fuel combustion takes place during the gasification phase. The second stage has combustion, but of a clean fuel.
Waste-to-energy inhibits recycling.
If the recyclables are removed before starting gasification so that only the waste that would go to landfill is used then NO, gasification is in fact recycling the waste by converting it into energy and displacing fossil fuels.
Plants have to be large.
NO For mass incineration, to obtain economies of scale, the plants have to be large to make them economic to operate. However, due to the small, efficient nature of the Stein Gasifier, plants are small and unobtrusive.