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"Roe cautions the plant’s yield is deliberately small so that it can readily test a variety of source material – everything from woody biomass to the garbage citizens normally tote out for curbside pickup and ends up in a landfill. He does say, however, that if garbage is used, a future that sees more selective separation of garbage would be ideal. Glass, tins cans and other inorganic garbage would burn easily enough in the facility’s plasma “torch,” but would yield nothing in the production of the syngas upon which the bacteria feast. (((If this last sentence isn't making your day, you are reading the wrong blog.)))
"For Coskata’s partner GM, the use of the Westinghouse Plasma Corp. technology is well-known quantity: GM has for more than two decades used a Westinghouse-developed plasma torch furnace to produce molten iron for engine blocks and brake components.
"Roe said the company’s timeline for two full-scale commercial facilities to be running by 2011 remains intact. He says the ideal output for such facilities would be in the range of 100 million gallons annually, but he can envision profitable plants at the 50 million-gallon level because facilities utilizing Coskata’s process could be economically sited in close proximity to any type of potential fuel stockpile....
