Mr Fusion: Turning trash into Energy and money.

It's a fundamental law of science that you can't get out more energy than you put in. However, what if what you put in wasn't something you wanted in the first place?

Startech Environmental Corporation has made a machine eradicates garbage. In goes garbage, garbage gets eradicated by plasma heated by a 30,000˚F arc of man-made lightning, out comes garbage's core elements. The by-products? An obsidian-like glass used as a raw material useful for many applications and a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be converted into a variety of fuels, including ethanol, natural gas and, obviously, hydrogen.

Once it's going it sustains itself by utilizing said gases, along as there's no garbage shortage.

It really sounds too good too be true. Let's hope "Big Landfill" stays out of it.

This is great news, and I don't even mean for the obvious environmental reasons. Lets face it, we talk a big game about saving the environment here in America, but when it comes time to buy the more expensive light bulb we balk.

Since I know you don't give a crap about the environment, here's why this is a great thing for you: Trash would be profitable. "But Jeremy, I can't afford a $250 million machine, how does that profit help me?" I'll tell you! At the moment garbage is a losing game. A large part of it has to be subsidized by the government, and in many areas a monopoly is allowed to exist. If the trash itself could lead to a profit that would end subsidies and there would be a boom of private companies. Those private companies NEED your garbage, or their machines are useless. Your garbage bill would drop dramatically over time. As this technology gets better it wouldn't be inconceivable to eventually RECEIVE money for your garbage, much like you can already for aluminum cans.