https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-transform-garbage-into-greener-fuels-11612886475

For centuries, people have burned waste to create energy, sending carbon billowing into the atmosphere. Transforming garbage into clean fuel, however, was an alchemy confined to fiction, like the movie “Back to the Future.” Now, a handful of companies want to turn household trash into low-emissions fuels for planes, trains and trucks.

The newer, cleaner process, known as waste gasification or pyrolysis, involves cutting and drying non-recyclable trash from homes and offices, such as packaging and bottles, before blasting it with 4,000-degree-Fahrenheit steam and oxygen to break it down into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The solids left behind are sold as road materials, and the gases produced can then be synthesized—using processes developed a hundred years ago—and refined into greener fuels, including biofuels and emissions-free hydrogen.

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