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Originally Posted by vinaur
That is quite impressive. I wonder why I haven't heard of this before, should be all over the science news. The only thing I don't understand is how in the world is this going to slow down global warming. Their argument that, since they are dot digging up any new compounds and burning them, there will not be more carbon released into the atmosphere is bogus. All the waste does not usually get converted into carbon dioxide and thus does not "pollute" the atmosphere. However, since we are now converting it to oil and burning it, it would only increase global warming (well, not really increase, since we are replacing fossil fuels, but it definitelly will not decrease it).
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I can see this helping with global warming because larger and faster processing centers will be made. I am sure that there will be more demand for power than can be supplied with the current waste. So what will they do? One idea would be to plant something that grows quickly and is very difficult to kill, and just harvest it for power generation. For this purpose kudzu is perfect in the US; it grows up to a foot every day and you can run a lawnmower over it without any harm.
The advantage is that the most efficient gathering methods for fuel is also a carbon sink for the environment; everything converted that is biological in origin is breaking even. This reduction will help get emissions under what can be absorbed naturally.