this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
87 points (93.9% liked)
Crazy Ideas
296 readers
19 users here now
Just crazy ideas!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I always like the semi-sci fi idea of the universal recycler. It's a method of recycling that relies entirely on known science and technology, but is simply impractical in the current economy.
The idea is that you literally turn everything into a plasma and then separate it down into base elements via magnetic separation. On one end, you input nearly anything - regular trash, construction waste, "recyclables," medical waste, decommissioned biological weapons - it doesn't matter. It all gets torn down to base elements and sold back into the economy. The only waste this method couldn't deal with would be nuclear waste, as magnetic separation isn't going to magically make unstable nuclei stable again.
This would totally work in principle. It's just incredibly energy-intensive. You need an economy where either the cost of energy is much much lower, or people are willing to spend much more in order to dispose of waste. It would enable the complete recycling of nearly anything, but it would just require an ungodly amount of energy.
This is essentially plasma gasification with an extra step at the end to sort the end product. Plasma gasification has been done commercially for decades (although it is still very niche). Some facilities are actually net energy producers. The main economic challenge at this point is really just the capital investment.
The separation on the backend would not be easy. But I suppose it is quite similar to that. This has the benefit that it doesn't emit anything or generate any waste on at all. It literally processes everything back into its pure base elements. It is a true universal recycler. It's something that could really help make that utopian vision of a true circular economy possible.
I'm not sure it would truly be waste free though if it separates everything into its base elements.
Things like wood are useful because they are made of molecules that end up as a useful material. Its base elements are much less useful.
You could use the hydrogen and oxygen but you would probably end up with a lot of extra carbon that no one on the market would need and then have to dispose of it somehow.
That's a really cool concept that I hadn't really considered being an option before. As you said,.that's definitely going to take a lot of energy to accomplish so maybe it'll be an economic possibility after fusion is readily available, which sadly is still a ways away but getting closer to becoming achievable every day.
A Star Trek Replicator in every house, please. Throw in the trash, get out whatever we need.
Yeah, this is basically a reverse replicator. We can't build the replicator, and we may never be able to. But we can however build a reverse replicator! Or, the unreplicator!
You know, that's what you could call it if "the universal recycler" is to pretentious. Just call it the unreplicator!
Sounds gooey
That is how Star Trek replicators worked. They went both ways. You say "catfish po' boy with extra chuckle", and it produces a sandwich on a plate. You eat the sandwich, and then place the dirty plate right back into the replicator to be recycled. The plate, along with any remaining food crumbs, sauce, etc. get converted back into energy, ready for the next thing you replicate.
Sure. I just find it amusing that while we can't build a replicator, we can build a shitty unreplicator.
Would storing nuclear waste this way be a problem though? I'd basically be an extremely overkill version of the current best known method for storing the waste sealed in base rock for millennia or 20
No. This is separating things down into their base elements. Yes, if you had some alloy that was half enriched uranium and half some other element, this machine would separate the alloy into those two elements. So you have one bin full of another metal like iron or tin. And then in the other....you have a pile of extremely radioactive uranium. Simply sorting things by atomic number does not make an isotope cease being radioactive. However, you could use this to aid in nuclear waste processing. It would be a lot easier to deal with waste if it is broken down into its constitutive elements. However, it's likely that if we ever built these, we would keep the ones used for anything radioactive kept for that and only that use. Highly radioactive material passing through any complex machine is going to cause all sorts of problems. So your local city recycler wouldn't be doing any nuclear materials recycling. That would be done at dedicated facilities.