The Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) is considering using its landfill to create fuel, a report from the Press of Atlantic City says. According to the report, the landfill will hit its capacity in around 2026.
The landfill is only permitted to operate at night, and must be covered by eight inches of sand by daylight, the report says. These were some of the conditions ACUA had to meet in order to get permission to open the landfill less than two miles from a commercial and military airport.
Once the landfill hits capacity, the operators have two options: pay to truck the trash to out-of-state landfills, as far as western Pennsylvania or Ohio, or build a plant that can convert garbage to fuel.
The plants, which burn garbage to generate electricity, are affordable, high-tech marvels with pollution controls, according to the report. They are used widely in England, Europe and Asia, where there is a lack of open land for landfills. Today’s waste-to-energy plants burn it efficiently in mass quantities and capture pollutants like mercury, chlorine and sulfuric acid through chemical processes.
Previously, ACUA looked into plasma gasification, which uses extremely hot temperatures to vaporize garbage, creating either a gas or liquid fuel that can be burned in power plants, the report says. In a year or so, the ACUA will put out a request for a company to build a small-scale plasma gasification plant in an underused part of the transfer station.
