That has been a big gripe of mine also, even 30 years ago when I was a kid and we did not have to worry about all the enviroment stuff!
Why waste all the feul?? Look around, Charcoal plants, steel, water, oil wells, landfills, etc.. all burning gas and wasting all the heat!
Either pipe it to something and use the gas, or mount something at the flames at the stack.
A charcoal plant is the most stupid thing of all! How do you make charcaol? By baking the impurities out of the wood! What is an impurity? METHANE!!
So simple it's almost stupid as the plants themselfs! Pipe the Methane into a tank, use the methane to bake the wood, sell the charcoal, use the methane to make the next batch of charcoal. Heck once you get the wood producing the methane you can just pipe the gas right back into the oven and the wood bakes itself that way, you only have to get it started. So basically you once you make the first batch of charcoal you don't need any feul for any future batches, you use the feul from the last batch! I have basically done this myself on a small scale, it works!
And you can even use the heat this way several times over if you do it right. The charcoal does not need the heat at all, so you have heat leaving as hot gases (the methane) that could be used to heat water, you have the exhaust from the oven created by the burned fuel, heats water to steam, run a gennie with it. Now you have no power needs for the entire plant except feul for trucks/forklifts which may not be electric powerd.
But instead I drive by at night and see that big ball of flames in the sky!
No more than they run the oil wells in parts of this country they could use a small steam engine to charge batteries and run the wells from electric motors instead of feul. Or they could simply store the methane in tanks at the wells then run the engines for the pumps on methane. Pretty sure some of the old pumpers I was around were either gas or deisel powered. Pipe of burning methane right next to them too.
I think the problem is they are blinded by green. They can't see money unless it is handed to them. They don't understand really that saving $1,000 is the same as making $1,000, it's not green, it never crosses their hand, they don't see it, it's not there. But it is!!
I know alot of people that are that way. They work for $7 an hour, then spend $14 for something they could have done themselfs in 5 minutes and think it's a good deal. They see the green, $14 is a good deal because because the other place wanted $21, they saved $7 of greens, they see this because it's handing out the green stuff at the time the work is done. But they could have done it for $7 in 5 minutes, but that $7 savings they can't see because there is no green involved in doing something yourself.
People are color blind, if not green like money they can't see it!
This goes for about everything too. I know a guy that's kinda an outdoor health nut. I mean he loves the outdoors, goes to a spa to work out, takes long walks, rides bikes, jogs, plants a garden, etc.. He thinks it's a good deal he only pays a lawn service $15 to mow his yard for him because the kid down the block wanted $20. And the guy has little money always broke. Why doesn't he mow his own lawn? At $15 that 30 minute job equals out to $30 an hour, he only makes $7 an hour working, and he basically does everything for fun or health that would be involved in mowing a yard. He even has a nice mower in the garage, not used for anything. Would cost him maybe $1 for gas to mow the yard, maybe $2.
Not that I care, it just does not make any sense to me!
By the time he pays taxes and all the other stuff to work at $7 an hour, he probably has to work at least 5 hours to bring home the $30 cash he pays to have his yard mowed 2 times, which takes 1 hour to do it twice, 30 minutes each time.
Then he wonders why I don't pay to have mine done too. Huh, can't afford it at those prices!
