"municipal waste would be an asset."
You are spot on, here. The municipality I work for runs a landfill and a sewage treatment plant. They are in the early planning stages to pursue this (after I showed them several articles two years ago.)
The big hold up right now? Capitalization, times are tough in California. If this had been developed 7 years earlier, we would already have had the plant built and operating. If I had the money, I'd finance it myself in a heartbeat.
It will be interesting to see how this works out in Philadelphia. I suspect they will find dozens of major cities jumping in as soon as the process shows results.
The big hold up right now? Capitalization, times are tough in California. If this had been developed 7 years earlier, we would already have had the plant built and operating. If I had the money, I'd finance it myself in a heartbeat.
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You ought to suggest to your city that they hire a grants solicitor. The art of getting grants from federal and private sources is so complicated that a profession has grown up around getting grants. This technology is so interesting that I can imagine any number of environmental and energy related public and private grant institutions would be interested in funding the project for your city.
So pay the annual salary of the grants solicitor for a year or two and see where it gets you. Should be room in the budget for that.
Get Duncan Hunter off his azzz and get a line item in the federal budget. If they can waste money on the Corp for Public Broadcasting they can help with this.