Army generators turn garbage into energy, energy into freedom

Leave it to the Army to start putting garbage to good use. According to reports, a base in Baghdad known as Camp Victory has been getting some of its electricity from generators that turn waste products into sweet, succulent fuel. The device, dubbed the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery (or TGER, for short) can take food slop, plastic, paper, styrofoam, annoying kids, moist towelettes, or smaller, non-functioning versions of itself and mash them down to synthetic gas and hydrous ethanol. Of course the concept isn't without its shortcomings, as it pumps a hefty load of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- but for a place that's short of fuel and high on trash, it's a dream come true.

[Via Wired; Image courtesy US Army]

[Richard Lai @ Jun 20th 2008 10:32PM]

Put plenty of trees around it and we'll be fine. :D

[Ian @ Jun 22nd 2008 1:20AM]

lol i remember playing sim city 3000 and having an incinerator next to a dump, but then putting lots of trees around it to lighten the impact of it.

[Tony C @ Jun 20th 2008 10:33PM]

It's Mr. Fusion!!! Now they just need to downsize it enough to bolt onto the back of a Delorean! =)

[Michael @ Jun 21st 2008 10:47AM]

MARTY!!!!!

[Za @ Jun 20th 2008 10:47PM]

Cuz Iraq is really short on oil...

[intel352 @ Jul 25th 2008 3:14AM]

my thoughts exactly.

seems to me they're more intent on Westernizing Iraq via the use of smog :-)

[Yevon @ Jun 20th 2008 11:37PM]

Ya know, you could market this a few ways...

"NEW, Neighbor-kids-be-gone!"

[j.pickens @ Jun 20th 2008 11:53PM]

This is what we all should be doing to our trash.
In my part of New Jersey, the county government passed a resolution forbidding garbage from going to the adjacent county's "dirty" trash to energy incinerator. Instead, they haul it an average of 150 miles to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.
20 tons of garbage in a hauling rig getting 3mpg full, 7mpg on the return trip 300 miles round trip burns 71 gallons of diesel fuel.
What a waste.
And the idiots at the county think they are environmentalists!

Take a ride on Route 80 or the PA Turnpike and see how many of the trucks are open haulers with canvas covers on them. The vast majority of these are municipal solid waste carriers. On a trip to Pittsburgh from New Jersey I stopped counting at 145 trucks...

[Wayne Schulz @ Jun 20th 2008 11:57PM]

I secretly wonder if these devices consume more energy and resources than they save,

[maveric101 @ Jun 22nd 2008 1:52AM]

i think this popsci article is about the same thing. if so, it outputs more electricity than it consumes. the thing can power itself, making it self-sustaining, and output the extra to the power grid. pretty amazing.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage

[Jake @ Jun 21st 2008 12:39AM]

America, FUCK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother fucking day, yeah!

-jp

[kamu @ Jun 21st 2008 12:54AM]

TGER? Come on Army Acronym Department, you can do better than that! You were an 'i' away from a stunner.

[maveric101 @ Jun 22nd 2008 1:49AM]

iTGER ? i kid, i'm not a mac fanboy.

[ryder242 @ Jun 21st 2008 1:29AM]

Considering that everything else out here is just burnt in open pits or as the locals like to do, dumped on the side of the road.

[Luke @ Jun 21st 2008 4:35AM]

Isn't oil the reason that the US government is in Iraq in the first place, so what....now they are thinking about alternative energy?! Probably just a favor from some general to some pal of his, who's company charges only 1.3billion for these.

[frederid @ Jun 21st 2008 11:41AM]

It's not a matter of really "saving energy" that we're worried about. Sure, it's nice. But this thing reduces the amount of diesel a FOB needs. What does that mean? It means less convoys on the road delivering diesel. Power surety is going to be a focus of the Army in the coming years. Not just to help cut down on resource usage, but to help keep soldiers who have to run the logistical routes off the road as much as possible.

[sgt_easton @ Jun 21st 2008 4:35PM]

Just in case you live in a cave, let me explain something to you: Gasoline (yes, it comes from oil) is over $4 a gallon in the States. If this war was over oil, I think we'd be paying a little less than that. Stop being a conspiracy theorist idiot and open your eyes.

If you mention Halliburton you automatically lose this arguement, because their stock isn't soaring. It's tracking right along with the rest of NASDAQ and the NYSE, if you know what those are.

[Macfly @ Jun 22nd 2008 11:14AM]

to reduce the amount of convoys on the road delivering diesel, would'nt it be easier to just get the hell out of there?
Saving many soldier and civillian lives in the process

[loosely_coupled @ Jun 23rd 2008 7:15AM]

sgt_easton

Well, there are certainly many other (illegitimate) reasons for the Iraq war than just oil, like fulfillment of neo-conservative agenda, psychiatric problems involving the "ego" / megalomania, the fact that bush has said "only a 'war president' can achieve greatness, revenge for attempting to assassinate bush Sr, etc.

But if you think the oil reserves in the middle east had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, you are more ignorant than the 'conspiracy theorist'.

First of all, Oil prices are mandated by the market, at least in the short term. The price of gasoline/diesel and other oil products is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Iraq was invaded for more control over middle east oil reserves in Iraq and surrounding countries.

Do you even know whats happening soon in Iraq? Large American/Multi-national oil companies are signing long-term oil production and distribution contracts with the Iraqi "government". You think having guaranteed western control of these oil reserver won't benefit the tremendous consumption of oil-based products in the United states?
Or that implanting a pro-USA puppet regime in Iraq won't have benefits not only for controlling local oil exports, but political and strategic influence in the region (and thus further indirect control of fossil fuels in the region)?

You can be as proud as you want about serving "the country" in Iraq, and no one is pointing fingers at soldiers who are just doing their job. It is the unimaginably corrupt and arrogant "regime" at home who are the problem.

[benhc911 @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:13AM]

I think another fact to consider is that while you are crying about 4 dollar a gallon gas, other places in the world pay 5-10 dollars for the equivalent volume.

I'm ready to get crucified for it, but gas should be taxed higher anyway. The environmental damage should be an internalized cost; use the difference to fund public transport and greener technologies... infrastructure revamping etc.

Im sad that it took "high" gas prices to teach people to let go of their Hummers and SUVs, but if that is what it takes... so be it.

Boomers seemed to be fixated with making money, more and more, at whatever cost... Why? So you can leave it to your children when you die? If that is the case, consider that it will take far more money then you will ever make to fix the problems that you are leaving us.

Its because companies are not forced to entirely internalize the cost of their damage that past generations lived big, and made so much money, but it cant continue, because the interest rate (so to speak) for the environment is very steep... And no amount of money will make me happy if the world is fracked.

[Steven Braun @ Jun 21st 2008 11:15AM]

and freedom into... {wait for it...} more war!

[linuxamp @ Jun 21st 2008 11:40AM]

They should have called it the Tactical Incendiary Garbage Energy Refinery AKA TIGER.

[Wwhat @ Jun 21st 2008 12:09PM]

ROFL about the name 'camp victory'.

[Cornelius @ Jun 21st 2008 1:01PM]

That's one hell of a USB port on that thing.

-Corn

[Joseph @ Jun 21st 2008 1:05PM]

submitted to digg

Army Generators turn trash into freedom.
I also re-worked the content
"as it pumps a hefty load of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- but for a place that's short of fuel and high on trash"
into a joke on how the middle east is short on oil/fuel and it is worth the CO2 it produces.

[burntpigeonproductions @ Jun 21st 2008 3:23PM]

Roads? Where we are going we don't need roads!

[environ @ Jun 21st 2008 4:10PM]

I forget, isnt there a bacteria that eats co2? Place a tray of that on top of the exhaust tray. Plants grow too slow :(

[Bill @ Jun 21st 2008 10:36PM]

Dibs on the "hydrous ethanol!"

[spm.peapot @ Jun 22nd 2008 8:38AM]

Why does everything in Army has to be labeled as "tactical?" IMO, there is nothing "strategical" or "tactical" about garbage processing.

[Bad Beaver @ Jun 21st 2008 8:59AM]

Uhm, your energy-supply is a major tactical factor? Being able to turn the masses of mangled corspes produced by your last carpet-bombing into energy to power your outpost / chill your coke is not to be underestimated.

[randy @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:23AM]

Power it with terrorists -- now THAT is energy efficiency.

[Stephen @ Jul 24th 2008 8:25PM]

uhhh, "Dirty Jobs" showed something like this a couple of years ago--in san fransico as i recall. They called their a Trommel, and it only worked with "biological" stuff, so no plastic or metal. but then it just munched everything up into sludge, heated and added bacteria (as I recall) to produce loads and loads of methane.