Talking (and burning) trash in the Army

[unixronin]

They call it Tiger — TGER, the Tactical Garbage-to-Energy Refinery — and it's being tested at Victory Base Camp in Baghdad.

The Army already incinerates its trash anyway.  Using Tiger, the trash is instead separated by the machine into wet and dry components.  The dry material — cardboard, plastic, etc — is crushed, pelletized, and heated to produce syngas.  The wet slop is enzyme-treated, then fermented into a mixture of about 85% ethanol and 15% water.  The water-ethanol mixture and the syngas are then blended and fed into the generator, where the water helps prevent overheating.

Garbage in; 55 kilowatts out.

The system takes about six hours to start up, but once operating, consumes only about a gallon of diesel per hour, a 95% reduction in diesel consumption.

It's about time we started realizing that garbage is too valuable a resource to just throw it away.  This is another step in the right direction.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I suspect that at this point, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. But maybe a few years down the line....