Projects
The total natural gas reserves in the world are currently estimated at 511,000 billion cubic meters and they will last for up to (only?) 200 years. They are used for cooking, heating water, producing electricity and heat, for transportation, or even as a medium to heat recovery and cooling units. Therefore, it is a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy. But what will happen in those 200 years, when natural gas will be used up?
People from the VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava ask this question every day and try to make alternative gas from sorted waste. They have built a gasification unit, which is in one of the buildings in the campus, representing an advanced version of the original equipment from 2007. The tested systems of energogas dry cleaning and a new way to use syngas have been newly incorporated into the facility. It is a synthesis of liquid biofuels of the second generation using Fischer-Tropsch method and the natural gas production.
In this device, they have managed to obtain gas from waste and use it to further generate energy. Given the current trend of consumer society that produces tons of garbage a year, it seems that the production of gas from waste could be a suitable ecological alternative for our descendants.
Energy Research Centre at VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava
