[ExI] SolarSyngas project

[Keith Henson]

Interesting comment from an AI, especially the regretful comment  at the
end/

I suspect everyone who looks at this project is going to ask an AI what it
thinks, and I suspect they will all say the same thing. I suppose I should
not be surprised; David Brin also thought it was an incinerator proposal.

Only one person exposed to the idea got it. Ben Goertzel. He wrote back in
less than an hour with a proposal to use this method in Africa to provide
24/7 PV-derived power for AI data centers.

The amusing thing is that sometimes the trash gets incinerated anyway.
About 20 miles to the east of where I live in Sylmar, there is a landfill
that has been on fire for a considerable time. Downwind is awful from the
smoke and smells. I don't know if they will ever put it out. There is a
landfill in the Southeast that has been burning for ten years.

>From the AI's opinion, I should find something else to work on.

Keith


On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 3:56 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 at 07:26, Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> I have a problem; any insight would be appreciated.
>> Though it is expensive to set up, processing MSW in gasifiers would seem
>> to be a good idea, especially now.
>> They make fuel at a reasonable cost, stop landfills from making methane,
>> and sort out trash into useful product streams, like syngas, construction
>> slag, and metals.
>>
>> However, the idea gets no traction, and I don't know why. If I did, I
>> would fix it if possible.
>>
>> I have speculated that the wide range of pieces might be the problem. It
>> combines solar PV, large power converters, and Victorian gas making
>> chemistry.
>>
>> When I was a kid, gas works and gas holders were still seen all over the
>> country. But they were all torn down by the mid 1950s.
>>
>> Your thoughts would be appreciated.
>>
>> Keith
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>
>
> I gave the SolarSynGas project description to GLM-5.3 Deep Think AI and
> asked it to consider the project and suggest reasons why there was
> currently little support for it.
> Some of the responses might not be valid, but they should provide food for
> thought.
> BillK
>
>
> GLM-5.3 Deep Think AI -
> Why SolarSyngas Struggles to Attract Support
>
> The concept is technically coherent — which makes the lack of support more
> about economics, politics, and track record than about thermodynamics. Here
> are the main reasons, roughly grouped:
> 1. The sector's track record is terrible
>
> This is probably the single biggest factor. Nearly every company that has
> tried MSW-to-syngas at commercial scale has failed or badly underperformed:
>
>    - *Plasco Energy* (Ottawa) — plasma gasification of MSW, ran a
>    demonstration plant for years, went bankrupt in 2016 after the economics
>    never closed.
>    - *Fulcrum BioEnergy* — MSW to Fischer-Tropsch jet fuel, backed by BP,
>    United Airlines, and over $700M, declared bankruptcy in 2024 with its
>    Nevada plant only partially operational.
>    - *Alter NRG / Westinghouse plasma* — the plasma torch technology
>    behind many projects; the parent exited the business.
>    - *Enerkem* — the closest thing to a survivor, has had persistent
>    scale-up and reliability problems at Edmonton.
>
> Investors and city officials remember these. Any new proposal carries the
> burden of "we've heard this before," no matter how different the underlying
> chemistry (e.g., molten-iron-bath gasification rather than plasma torches).
> 2. Every individual revenue stream has a cheaper, subsidized competitor
>
> The project is a *portfolio* of functions — waste disposal, grid storage,
> fuel production, metals recovery — and each one competes against something
> with lower capital costs or better policy support:
>
>    - *Waste disposal*: US landfill tipping fees are $50–100/ton and
>    landfills are politically entrenched, with waste hauling being a
>    concentrated, well-connected industry.
>    - *Grid storage*: Batteries are modular, bankable, deployable in 12
>    months, and get ITC support. A multi-billion-dollar gasifier that stores
>    energy with ~55–60% round-trip efficiency (7.2 MWh out of 12.2 MWh
>    chemical, after 4 MWh electric in) looks like a worse battery than
>    batteries, and worse than plain electrolytic hydrogen for seasonal storage.
>    - *Fuels*: Synfuels compete with $60–90 oil. The Qatar plant works
>    because of near-free stranded gas, not because FT is cheap.
>    - *Power*: Syngas-fired turbines compete with natural gas at
>    $2–4/MMBtu.
>
> Multi-function projects are also *harder* to finance, not easier: every
> revenue stream carries its own market and regulatory risk, and lenders
> discount all of them.
> 3. California specifically is hostile territory
>
>    - Anything that resembles incineration triggers intense
>    environmental-justice opposition. Communities near the ports and rail yards
>    already carry disproportionate air pollution burdens, and NGOs (GAIA and
>    allies) campaign actively against "incineration in disguise."
>    - Air permits for a 2500 t/d thermal waste facility in the LA basin
>    are close to unobtainable. California hasn't permitted a new
>    waste-combustion facility in decades.
>    - MSW contains chlorine (PVC), and hot reducing gas with chlorine is a
>    dioxin-formation pathway. Whether or not the iron bath actually destroys
>    dioxins, the *permitting fight* over that question alone could consume
>    a decade.
>
> 4. The project's own framing contains tensions reviewers notice
>
>    - *"It absorbs excess renewable energy" vs. "it runs 24/7."* A 5.8 GW
>    load running continuously is not a curtailment sink — it's a major new
>    baseload demand competing for the same electrons as EVs, heat pumps, and
>    hydrogen electrolysis, which have far stronger policy constituencies.
>    - *The "battery" claim* compares unfavorably once you account for the
>    fact that most of the output energy comes from the waste itself. Stripped
>    of framing, this is a waste-to-energy plant with electric assist — a
>    category with a known and uninspiring cost history.
>    - *CO storage in depleted gas fields* is without precedent and will
>    alarm regulators. Carbon monoxide is acutely lethal at low concentrations;
>    hydrogen embrittles and leaks. A single incident would end the storage
>    concept politically.
>
> 5. Feedstock risk inverts the usual logic
>
> Policy momentum is toward *less* MSW: extended producer responsibility,
> organic-waste diversion mandates (SB 1383 in California), and recycling
> targets. Committing to 30 gasifiers × 20–30 year lifetime creates a
> "put-or-pay" demand for waste that cities may not be able to guarantee —
> and that activists will frame as "locking in trash generation." The same
> argument used against incinerators applies.
> 6. Scale-up risk is extreme
>
> The largest waste gasifiers ever seriously attempted were in the
> few-hundred-ton-per-day range, and most struggled with MSW's heterogeneity
> (rocks, batteries, rebar, moisture swings) causing refractory damage, tar
> management, and syngas cleanup upsets. Jumping to 2500 t/d with a
> liquid-iron bath is a 10× scale-up of an unproven configuration, plus a
> syngas cleanup train to FT-grade purity — which, in every prior project,
> turned out to be the dominant cost nobody had budgeted honestly.
> 7. Policy asymmetry
>
> The IRA showered money on solar, wind, batteries, and hydrogen (45V, 45Q).
> There is no production tax credit for syngas, no investment credit for
> gasifiers, and LCFS/renewable-fuel pathway certification for MSW-derived FT
> fuel is slow and adversarial. The project needs a subsidy architecture that
> doesn't exist yet.
> ------------------------------
> What would change the picture
>
> If the proponents want support, the realistic path is probably:
>
>    1. *A 100–250 t/d demonstration plant* with 8,000+ hours of reliable
>    operation and verified energy/material balances — the one thing no
>    predecessor ever delivered.
>    2. *Third-party verification of the energy balance*, since the "4 MWh
>    in / 12.2 MWh out" claim will draw skepticism and needs unimpeachable data.
>    3. *Siting outside California* first (Texas, the Southeast — where
>    tipping fees, air permitting, and power markets are friendlier), with LA as
>    a later target.
>    4. *Leading with the fuels story*, since LCFS credits for
>    waste-derived jet fuel are the one revenue stream with meaningful, growing
>    policy support — and aviation has no electrification alternative.
>
> The tragedy is that the underlying idea — using a waste stream plus
> surplus renewable power to make dispatchable chemical energy — is genuinely
> sound. But sound ideas with a multi-billion-dollar FOAK price tag, a
> graveyard of failed predecessors, and a political environment that treats
> all waste-thermal projects as incineration face a nearly impossible
> fundraising and permitting climb in the absence of a government backer
> willing to take the first-of-a-kind risk.
>
> --------------------------------------
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