The Plasma Age

The proliferation of new technology in the 21st century has wielded substantial paradigm shifts in the way people communicate. Genetics has been revolutionized with whole genome sequencing in a matter of days. Robotics and nanotechnology have started making an impact but the full swing of those technologies is still far from being reached.

Presently however, I’d like to present a new period classification, the Plasma Age. It turns out that this term has been used before to describe the proliferation of lasers from laboratories to personal electronics. Plasma (as in ionized gasses not the bodily fluid) has steadily been increasing its presence in our society. The most obvious example is the Plasma television. (Although due to their limited lifespan I am an LCD fan.) What I propose however, isn’t the age of small plasma based devises, but a host of industrial scale plasma technologies. Stars like our sun have a corona of plasma that burns at a million degrees. Seeing people use plasma in engineering application is a bit like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.

Ad Astra recently tested a novel type of engine dubbed the VASIMR “rocket.” However, this engine is not a rocket in the standard use of the term. An engine like this could never generate enough thrust to get a craft out of Earth’s atmosphere. Rather, this is one of the best designs of an ion thruster for travel in the frictionless vacuum of space. Just like you wouldn’t use a coal-steam engine to power an airplane, you wouldn’t use this technology to escape Earth’s gravity. This system or something similar could be the ‘railroad’ technology of the space age. The design operates by using a radio frequency chamber to turn gas into ionized plasma. This is then sent through a cylotron and propelled outward at high velocity. It is cited that the current Ad Astra designs could shuttle an astronaut to Mars in only 39 days.

Let’s do a 180, there are other uses of Plasma out there which are much more down to Earth. Consider using a plasma incinerator to convert garbage into fuel and extract precious rare earth metals from old electronics. Pioneered by a group of entrepreneurial engineers working at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site; this system converts waste material into fuels and chemicals. Plasmagasification heats material up to 10,000 degrees celsius, converting organic waste into ionized gas and differentiating solid material for use in recycling. This is the technology that will eliminate landfills. It does produce a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel, which when oxidized creates greenhouse gasses; but this can be used as an alternative to dangerous natural gas fracturing techniques. Moreover, this fuel can be converted into pure hydrogen instead. Solid materials output from this process can be used as building materials and in our roads; and rare earth metals which are in high demand for solar panels, smart phones, and any other type of electronics.

Here’s a cool video of one of the groups doing this plasmagasification:

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