Patent ID: 8306665

Claim:
A method for controlling processing of a feedstock of highly variable carbon content into a gas having substantially consistent characteristics, the method comprising the steps of: providing a facility configured to process the feedstock of highly variable carbon content into the gas having substantially consistent characteristics in accordance with a global process, said facility comprising one or more feedstock inputs, one or more additive inputs, one or more plasma heat sources and one or more outputs, said global process comprising a plurality of local processes, regional processes, or both; sensing a plurality of operational characteristics, each operational characteristic indicative of one or more of the global, local and regional processes; generating, using one or more computing platforms, one or more control parameters based on information indicative of said plurality of operational characteristics, the one or more control parameters conducive to obtain, adjust towards or maintain a plurality of target conditions of the global, local and regional processes, wherein the one or more control parameters are configured for cooperatively controlling two or more of the global, local and regional processes; controlling, using a plurality of response elements communicatively linked to the one or more computing platforms, the global, local and regional processes based-at least in part on the one or more control parameters; and representing one or more of the plurality of operational characteristics by a numeric characteristic value; wherein said generating one or more control parameters includes computing one or more of the control parameters based in part on a comparison of: one or more of the characteristic values wherein each of the characteristic values is provided directly or indirectly by one or more sensing element or is derived from signals provided directly or indirectly by the one or more sensing elements, with one or more numeric target values or ranges thereof wherein each of the one or more target values is associated with one or more of the target conditions; wherein the one or more operational characteristics include a H 2 content of the gas and a CO content of the gas, wherein the H 2 content of the gas is represented by a characteristic value [H 2 ] and the CO content of the gas is represented by a characteristic value [CO], wherein said one or more control parameters include a parameter for controlling input of air [Air] into a gasifier of the facility and a parameter for controlling input of steam [Steam] into the gasifier, wherein the parameters [Air] and [Steam] are determined at least in part using a relationship according to: [ H 2 CO ] = [ a b c d ] ⁡ [ Air Steam ] and wherein a b c and d are empirical values that depend on facility design and one or more desired output characteristics of the facility.