The future of garbage

Jan. 18, 2012, San Francisco, CA – Sierra Energy CEO Mike Hart was the
keynote speaker at the third annual Pacific West Biomass Conference
& Trade Show and discussed how landfills and garbage are the future
of biomass.

In an article published by Biomass Power and Thermal, Hart spoke about the potentially large applications of municipal solid waste and synthetic gas to the biomass industry.

"Hart said he believes that over the next 15-20 years,
trash will become a valuable commodity as waste conversion technologies
become widely implemented.  “As time goes on, we’re going to be buying
it and making competitive bids,” he said, adding that feedstock
flexibility will become a dominant factor in the biomass energy
industry, particularly those that can utilize complex wastes such as
MSW. 

From Hart’s perspective, a game-changing element of feedstock
procurement is on its way: suppliers paying biomass plants to take
feedstock, rather than plants paying to create their feedstock. As a
focus on trash develops and it becomes a commodity, companies that
designed technologies based on a specific feedstock that was typically
free will realize the economics of their system no longer work. “This is
because people with waste products will realize they have another
product to sell,” Hart said. “My expectation is that we will see this
with garbage.”"

For the complete article, please visit their website here.