A city in east China is keeping its lights on at night using the power generated through burning truckloads of damaged banknotes.
This year alone over 1,800 tonnes of money with a value of almost 180 billion yuan ($28.2 billion) has been incinerated to generate electricity in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, according to The People's Daily online.
The money burnt is the old 100 Yuan ($15.66) red banknotes that are now being replaced nationwide with a new design.
According to the report, one truck of burnt currency can generate 30,000 kilowatt hours.
Considering the average household in the city uses 100-kilowatt hours per month, this means the output of one truckload can supply one home with power for 25 years.
Compared to other biomass fuels like sawdust, these banknotes have a high caloric value (a weightless gas that passes in and out of pores in solids and liquids) and a low water content, which is suitable for biomass power generation.
Not only is the money turned into power, the remaining ash is made into bricks which ensures sustainable and harmless disposal.
3 comments:
Well this is defiantly an innovative way to get rid of old and damaged currency! I think this is very creative and useful seeing as how we are moving into an age where everyone wants everything to be recycled and re-purposed after it is no longer usable for its initial intended purpose. But could there be possible negative side affects from burning the bills? China isn't known for their quality of air, and the last thing the county needs is more toxins to go into their lungs. For now this seems like a good alternative energy/ building source, lets just hope the possible future environmental implications aren't terrible.
I agree with Rachael, this is a fantastic way to use unused currency and since China is changing the note anyways there is no harm, it's not like they can use the money bank note anyway.
I don't know about what the bank notes do for the air quality but there seem to be more positives then negatives at the moment. The notes are supplying electricity for the town yangcheng and then the sawdust is made into bricks to make houses, it seems like a good enough idea. I wonder though if the bricks will hold over time? I also wonder what will happen after they run out of bank notes to burn.
This is very interesting and as Rachael said innovative. I wonder if America did this what people would say. I have a hard time believing that burning old money is not good for the environment and I imagine critiques would say that there are better things to do with money then to generate electricity because they couldn't understand the fact the money is being replaced and no longer helpful for the economy. I bet environmentalists would also appeal this motion.
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