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I guess having huge riots and churning up the populace will make things all better.

WHY is food production down, to the degree that food prices EVERYWHERE in the world are rising, sometimes precipitously?

It is not because the world cannot produce the crops, there seems to be a collective will to simply not do what is necessary to encourage the agricultural production we need, and to deliver it to the recipients in a timely and mutually acceptable manner.

Using the truly massive production of maize here in the US to produce a motor fuel of only marginal value, while diverting the crop away from export markets, seems to be a misapplication of available resources. The price is artificially bid up, because of the subsidy being paid for the domestic production of ethanol, when ethanol is available on the world market from the major sugar prooducers, like Brazil. There is a large tariff AGAINST the importation of fuel-grade ethanol. And isn’t too much refined sugar one of the major nutritional problems in the world today? What better thing to do with that world glut of sugar, than to turn it into motor fuel, rather than using a high-value food ingredient like corn grain?

Adn what is the bias against using the mineral resources so widely available in our OWN country, so we are not competing with the rest of the world for the relatively finite amount of petroleum produced on a daily basis globally? Natural gas, which we have in PLENTIFUL supply, and even coal, we have in huge abundance, both of which may be much more fully utilized than they now are, to produce the most flexible of all energy delivery systems, electricity.

You want really clean coal? Easy, we already have the technology to produce just that. By a modification of something called Plasma Arc Trash Reduction, (http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage) which may be used to turn the trash stream into electrical power generation, we could be well on the way to production of not only electrical energy, but very high-quality, sulfur-free Diesel fuel, and recapture of all the noxious elements found in coal.

This Plasma Arc Trash Reduction process is briefly explained as follows. ALL forms of trash are reduced to their constituent atomic structure, then the heat generated by this process is used to drive electric power generation. The primary products of this process are “syngas”, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which may be then used to form various hydrocarbon fractions, through the Fischer-Trofsch process. Once up and running, the operating temperature of the plasma torch is about 33,000 degrees F., about three times the temperature of the sun’s surface. The syngas generated is about 2,200 degrees F., and is passed over a heat exchanger to generate superheated steam, in the process of cooling it. Once cooled, the stream of hydrogen and carbon monoxide may be separated, yielding up pure hydrogen which may be used to power a fuel cell, or burned directly in the presence of oxygen to yield a very hot flame, which may be used to further produce power through the medium of superheated steam. Carbon monoxide itself is an excellent fuel which when combined with oxygen, forms carbon dioxide, a safe, NON-POLLUTING fraction of our atmosphere, and one that is vital for the photosynthesis of oxygen and carbohydrates in green growing plants. The carbon dioxide may also be captured, cooled and compressed into either liquid CO2, or allowed to become “dry ice”, an intensely cold and solid form of CO2, and an important industrial product.

The hydrogen, of course, when combined with oxygen, becomes water vapor.

Empty out our land fills and turn those blighted acres back into “greenfields”, divert all the existing and continuing waste stream into electric power, reduce need for and dependence on fossil fuels, assure a continuous supply of building materials that will prove to be the equal of our current supplies, and provide a way of reclaiming metallic elements otherwise lost when merely dumped in a hole in the ground. And not only the land fills, the sewage sludge that is now dumped there could go through this plasma arc, with the decomposed fecal matter adding its bit to the “syngas”, and simultaneously extracting all the dreaded metals like cadmium and mercury from circulation in the soil and groundwater.

I don’t see a downside. Most elegant solution.

It has been estimated that perhaps fewer than a dozen of these processing units could both clean up all the existing waste dumps, and the current waste stream, for a municipality the size of New York City, and generate enough electricity to keep it lit and industry-capable, without tapping into outside sources.

There is a place to spend the funds for infrastructure that does NOT have to be only for the roads and bridges. This is infrastructure that actually IMPROVES our environment. And generates a number of useful by-products, not the least of which is relatively cheap electric power.

And as stated before, the material needed to fuel these Plasma Arc torches need not be just the trash stream, ANY organic material, and practially all hazardous waste, could be put through this process, yielding up additional energy as it operates.