In January 2013, Alter NRG commissioned a Westinghouse plasma gasification unit at a demonstration facility in Wuhan, China.
The plasma gasification unit was designed to process approximately 100 tons per day of biomass waste and convert it to clean syngas.
It took over five years to start it up due to problems with size of the bottom of the reactor, carryover of sticky particulate, and the wrong choice of refractory.
As a result, it lost its waste supply contracts and did not meet its design heat and material balance, so Hitachi Metals shut it down in 2013.
[6] A compact Plasma Arc Waste Destruction System (PAWDS) was installed by PyroGenesis Canada Inc. on board the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78).
[10] In 2021 the government of North Macedonia announced plans to build a €327 million plasma gasification plant in Negotino to handle municipal waste from most of the country without causing air pollution.
For additional income, the waste would be pre-sorted to recover materials such as plastics, iron, paper and glass, and the leftover slag will be used in construction.
[15] EnviroParks Limited[16] plan (31/9/07) a consortium to build an Organic Park in Tower Colliery at Hirwaun, South Wales.
This includes a plasma gasification plant combined with advanced anaerobic digestion to divert municipal solid waste from the landfill.
In an update to local area residents on 6 December 2008, Plasco president Rod Bryden said delays at its facility were caused by malfunctioning machinery, not problems with the waste-to-energy technology.
[24] Unlike conventional plasma gasification, the Plasco approach was to demonstrate the technology as an integrated plant at commercial scale at its own expense.
In December of the same year, the New Economy Magazine awarded Plasco a prize as "the world's best waste management technology".
Despite this, having failed to receive expected government aid, the investors chose not to pursue the construction of the Ottawa plant and put the company into creditor protection in 2015.
Plasco Energy has since changed its business model from Build Own Operate and limited it to supply of equipment and services [citation needed].
On April 26, 2011, the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) inaugurated its Transportable Plasma Waste to Energy System (TPWES) facility, located at Hurlburt Field, near Fort Walton Beach Florida, USA.
The syngas generated by the process was fed to an internal combustion engine to produce electricity, while the inorganic fraction of the waste feed was converted into an inert, vitrified slag which could allegedly be used for building materials.
Navitus Plasma Inc. proposed the installation of a system named "DEEP" "Dufferin Eco Energy Park" within East Luther Grand Valley located in the County of Dufferin (approximately 45 minutes north of Toronto) and planned to take all municipal garbage for the county to this facility.
Plasco is not proposing that Metro Vancouver discontinue the RFP process, but rather to establish an interim solution that can quickly address the shortfall in landfill capacity, while also providing a facility that will allow Metro Vancouver to closely scrutinize and evaluate this new technology as part of its long-term decision-making process.
[36] Utilizing technology licensed from Europlasma, the plasma arc facility proposed for lands in the vicinity of Wesleyville in Port Hope, Ontario (approximately 45 minutes east of Toronto) will handle 400 short tons (360 t) per day of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and Tire Derived Fuel (TDF).
[37] PR Power Co. plans to open a plant south of Atlanta, near Jackson, Georgia, that will use a "plasma torch" to vaporize tires down to their natural elements — mainly hydrocarbons and scrap steel.
"[41] The regional government of Madrid, Spain, announced in 2008 the installation of a plasma-based waste disposal system in the city of Alcalá de Henares.
[42] The public health and environmental threats from incinerators, coupled with the fact that the place was environmentally protected led to the revision of the whole project, changing the emplacement and choosing an approach different than plasma gasification [43] Delft University (TUD) participated in a contest by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 'Re-invent the toilet'.
[44] The solution proposed by TUD included a self-contained toilet that used microwaves to create plasma and gasify human waste.