Solar Landfills

From Michele Starkey:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9164035/developing_a_new_dump_through_solar.html?cat=15

From Priscilla King:

Although my Yahoo article about how my home town is not Appalachia didn't even mention the political differences (Gate City tends to elect Republicans; Appalachia tends to back Democrats), technology is shrinking the world etc. etc. Once it was a catastrophe if a Gate City man (yes, it had to be a man, by law) became desperate enough to work in a traditional coal mine in Appalachia. Now people make the hour-long commute to work in the strip mines. Once the saying about coal was that we didn't even burn the nasty stuff. Now the slogan in Delegate Terry Kilgore's office is "If you think coal is ugly, look at poverty."

Right. Granted. Poverty is ugly. No argument there. Given a choice between letting children go hungry, going on welfare, or working in a coal mine, I hope any of us would work in a coal mine. Even a strip mine. But as
our mutual mentor and relative, George Peters, used to tell Delegate Kilgore and me, "You can do better than that!" There ought to be an alternative that's better than strip mines. There has to be, because strip mines, by definition, won't hold off poverty for long.

Could solar landfills be the alternative?

I remember the "Make Your Own Coal" experiment in fifth-grade science. Granted, what kids make by charring nice clean autumn leaves during science period is at best what's called peat, or lignite, rather than what's ordinarily sold as coal. Granted, the additional slow, dry heat required to turn it into coal is expensive; some smart-alecks have said that if we're going to spend that much time and money we might as well go all the way and turn it into diamonds. But even if what's made out of garbage is merely peat, peat burns hot. There's a reason why it's classified as a form of coal.

I want to know more about this kind of technology. I want to know how it might work at the Scott County landfill. I want to know how it might work in the moonscape-like mess that's been made of what used to be the scenic, historic Cumberland Mountain ridge near Appalachia.