Electric Comet wrote in
:

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 19:43:07 +0000 (UTC)
John McCoy wrote:

most posts here meander on and on with so many misunderstandings
along the way that the main point left on a tributarity near the start
and was never found again

Got that right :-)

You're defining efficient as "produce the minimum amount of
residual for a given amount of input".

For power plants, a more common definition of efficient is
"produce the maximum amount of electricity for a given amount
of fuel". Plasma doesn't score all that well by that
definition.

well i wonder because the syngas byproducts may change the efficiency

Well again, what efficiency are you thinking of? It won't
change the efficiency of fuel in - electricity out. It
may change the efficiency of cost to run - revenue created.

In that case I meant the cost to create the facility. I'm
not clear on why a plasma plant is a lot more expensive than
a simple incinerator, but they are.

incinerators burn organic material
plasma is at 10,000 F so requires more expense to construct

Shouldn't be vastly more, tho. At least, I'm not seeing why
it would be.

the other post i linked to an article where they just started a
25ton/day plasma system in oregon

Yes, I read that. The goal there seems to be hazardous waste
disposal, with power generation as a bonus.

not sure what happens to dirt when exposed to plasma

What sort of dirt?

Many soils are mostly silica (aka sand), they would turn
into glass.

John