Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery - a Place in Agriculture.

The Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery (TGER) system is a portable Waste to Energy (WTE) system that was developed under several Department of Defense funding mechanisms. In its present form, it is intended to take energetically dense waste materials, such as packaging materials, plastic, liquid and wet food waste from a forward operating base and dispose of this waste by converting it into electricity and reclaimed distilled water. The system integrates both thermochemical and biocatalytic technologies to allow for conversion of a wider spectrum of waste, higher efficiency, and lower energy costs. TGER is currently intended for temporary, off-grid conversion of waste to energy. This manuscript documents the continued development of the TGER system during its transformation from a preliminary 1.0 design to the present 2.0 design. The TGER system is the only hybrid waste to energy system of which we are aware, the hybrid approach allows for conversation of liquid, wet, and dry bulk waste. Other systems address only dry and very limited moisture content materials. The waste products generated by the TGER are gasifier ash and gray water. The ash (or biochar depending on the feedstock) was analyzed and is safe for use as a soil amendment. The amount of ash expected is about 5% of the waste feed, or about 100 pounds per day for a nominal waste feed rate of one ton per day. About 10 pounds/day of gray water will be produced and will be available for potential reuse or disposal. In addition to the development of the TGER for military situations, TGER could conceivably be of value in emergency situations (natural disaster recovery) where waste disposal and an additional power supply would be beneficial or TGER could be employed to remote sites that require waste reduction and power for irrigation and other agronomic projects.