A land based or marine vessel based system for generating power from syngas utilizes a feedstock of waste material acquired from waste dumps, municipalities, and/or ports of call of the marine vessel. The marine vessel or land based system can be retrofitted to be fueled by the waste material. The syngas is used to provide propulsive and/or electrical power for the marine vessel or the land based system. The waste material is not just a feedstock for the syngas but is provided with payment from the ports of call to take the waste material away. The marine vessel also collects garbage floating on the waterway along the voyage between the various ports of call for use as feedstock in the production of syngas. The modular syngas generation system further generates H2 from the syngas. The H2 generated thereby is used to fuel an H2 fuel cell for the generation of electrical power.