It's all nice to 'feel' green but all that is is just feeling, nothing practical. The people at Edmonton's Waste Transfer Facility are doing it right - doing, not feeling.
From The City of Edmonton:
Waste-to-Biofuels and Chemicals Facility
Edmonton’s Waste-to-Biofuels and Chemicals Facility is the first industrial scale waste-to-biofuels facility in the world to turn household garbage into biofuels and biochemicals..
The facility was built and is owned and operated by Enerkem Alberta Biofuels, a subsidiary of Enerkem. Using Enerkem's proprietary technology, it will convert 100,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste into 38 million litres of biofuels and chemicals annually and help Alberta reduce its GHG emissions. (Waste-based biofuels can reduce GHG emissions by more than 60% when compared with fossil fuel production and landfill operations.)
The City of Edmonton is currently diverting up to 60% of residential waste from landfill primarily through recycling and composting. The Waste-to-Biofuels and Chemicals Facility will enable the City to increase that diversion rate to 90% by 2016.
The feedstock for producing biofuels is municipal solid waste that cannot be recycled or composted and has traditionally been sent to landfill. Using waste to produce cleaner burning fuels is a major leap forward in Edmonton's commitment to using waste as a resource and becoming an energy sustainable city.
Initially the facility will produce methanol, followed by ethanol. The goal of producing methanol and subsequently ethanol has both environmental and economic benefits since it supports the increasing demand for biofuels.
They also provide this 4 minute video:
The word you are looking for is Pyrolysis - the process has been around for a long time. This is the process used for thousands of years to make charcoal for blacksmithing and fuel.
It is a bit sad that they are stuck-on-stupid with the ethanol automotive "fuel" B.S. -- that was a case of lobbying taken to an absurd extreme. ADM should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up and putting a stop to their little scam but hey, it's ADM...
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