NationStates Jolt Archive


Garbage to oil?

Mesatecala
01-08-2005, 22:51
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/Pages/gnngod.html#cwt

IMAGINE... Imagine a machine that can turn almost anything into oil. Imagine that it uses natural processes like heat and pressure, and produces no pollution. Imagine that waste from landfills, refuse from poultry factories, sludge from city sewage, or even infectious medical waste, are used to make the oil. Everybody says it sounds too good to be true. But now we have the science -- and two factories -- to prove it.

"This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," Brian Appel, CEO of Changing World Technologies, Inc., told Discover magazine in a May 2003 feature article. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."

The process is called thermal depolymerization. Waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: High-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. CWT established a Research & Development plant in Philadelphia in 1999 to test and refine the technology. It successfully processed about seven tons per day of different types of waste, like animal waste, tires, plastics and paper.

ConAgra Foods proposed a joint venture for the first commercial application of the technology. As a result, a $20 million plant is poised to begin operating in September on the grounds of a massive Butterball Turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri. Funded in part by a $5 million grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the plant will process 200 tons per day of fats, bones, feathers, and grease, turning it into oil, with the only by-product being water.

"This is tremendous!" said Paul Baskis, the inventor of the process, to the Kansas City Star. "From the tests we've run in our pilot, we know that if we took all the agricultural wastes (in America) and converted them into oil we could make billions of barrels per year." (One billion barrels could effectively eliminate the need for Persian Gulf imports.)

The conversion process emulates the earth's natural geothermal activity, whereby organic material is converted into fossil fuel under conditions of extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. By using pipes, pressure vessels, valves, and heat exchange storage tanks to control temperature and pressure, thermal depolymerization shortens the process from millions of years to mere hours. And, the process is simple enough to be completed "on the back of a flatbed truck," says Appel.

The technology is 85% energy efficient because it has very low Btu requirements. It generates its own energy, utilizes recycled water throughout, produces no uncontrollable emissions and no secondary hazardous waste streams. In addition, the process can make both the coal and petroleum industries themselves more clean and profitable by turning their waste and chemical by-products into salable resources.


Is this for real?
Freyalinia
01-08-2005, 23:02
that looks too good to be true

but if it isn't, mankind (at least the current lifestyle of mankind) is saved
Gulf Republics
01-08-2005, 23:05
Yeah its true, i got my machine right here that turns shit into gold. Only $15.95 + S&H. (though you may not want to handle it too much).
Mesatecala
01-08-2005, 23:08
I found a few more links:

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm

http://members.cox.net/gillow/gillow/Future/thermal_depolymerization.htm - This source is less optimistic, but still says nonetheless it will reduce dependence on middle east oil greatly.

http://www.kantor.com/useful/thermo.shtml - This source says it is in fact a real, doable process

I think it is in fact real, and I think we are doing it..
Silly Sharks
01-08-2005, 23:17
Umm... you do know the garbage>oil thing has been going on in Manchester for several years now, right?
Mesatecala
01-08-2005, 23:36
Umm... you do know the garbage>oil thing has been going on in Manchester for several years now, right?

No I didn't... actually.. in fact I knew nothing about it...
Silly Sharks
01-08-2005, 23:40
No I didn't... actually.. in fact I knew nothing about it...
Yeah, it happens, but they get very little oil.
G'nite, everyone.
Drunk commies deleted
01-08-2005, 23:54
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/Pages/gnngod.html#cwt



Is this for real?
It's for real. Their plant in Missouri has been producing oil and natural gas for some time now.
Mesatecala
01-08-2005, 23:57
It's for real. Their plant in Missouri has been producing oil and natural gas for some time now.

Cool...

Do you think we can do this with political views too? J/K I'm sorry that just came out of my mouth..
Cannot think of a name
01-08-2005, 23:58
Umm... you do know the garbage>oil thing has been going on in Manchester for several years now, right?
Ummmm...Why, if he is asking for independent verification and input on a story he clearly just came across, would he know about them doing it in Manchester? Hmmm?

Maybe-and this is just me-it would have been better perhaps to say, "Why yes, I do believe it is in fact a real process. There is a factory that produces in Manchester that has been operating for a while that doesn't produce that much oil."

Certainly that would have indicated that you had a better grasp of what was being asked.
Our Benefactors
02-08-2005, 00:07
Yea I read about this a couple of years ago. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it is. I think they get about a third of whatever they put in back in oil and the rest is turned into other products. The only limitation is that the input material must have a hydrocarbon base. Fortunatly that is almost everything. It replicates what the earth does to create oil, but instead of taking millions of years it takes a few hours. That is all I remember from the article.

Edit: most of that was mentioned in this article... Well that is what I get for not reading.
Straughn
02-08-2005, 04:33
Urantia II posted a HUGE thread on this topic. Scientific American had an excellent article on it.
Leonstein
02-08-2005, 09:05
If they use compression to create oil from garbage (I assume it is bio-garbage and I can't be fagged to read the whole thing), then it's no good anyways.
Think of the huge amounts of stuff you'd need to create a little bit of oil. It'll never be economical, cuz it can't produce as fast enough.
Mesatecala
02-08-2005, 09:08
If they use compression to create oil from garbage (I assume it is bio-garbage and I can't be fagged to read the whole thing), then it's no good anyways.
Think of the huge amounts of stuff you'd need to create a little bit of oil. It'll never be economical, cuz it can't produce as fast enough.

My sources say otherwise because technology is getting better and better... and more efficient.
Leonstein
02-08-2005, 09:09
My sources say otherwise because technology is getting better and better... and more efficient.
But, but...the Chemistry.
If you use compression, then the volume of the garbage must be thousands and thousands of times greater than the volume of the oil. How can you possibly make that more efficient?
Gartref
02-08-2005, 09:23
But, but...the Chemistry.
If you use compression, then the volume of the garbage must be thousands and thousands of times greater than the volume of the oil. How can you possibly make that more efficient?

It's all true. The process is nothing too revolutionary. Anything organic can be distilled into oil. The problem in the past has been cost. There has been a plant operating in PA for about 20 years now slowly making the process more efficient. The cost per barrel is around 25-35 dollars depending on the organic source. This cost has been too high until just the past two years. For decades oil traded at between 15-20 dollars per barrel with only brief spikes higher. Now that oil seems to be settling at above the 40 dollar per barrel mark, this technology seems poised to become common place. I believe Butterball has already spent tens of millions installing this tech in turkey plants.

If America converted it's raw sewage and landfill waste into oil using TDP we would never have to buy a drop of foreign oil again - Nor fight in anymore oil wars.
Mesatecala
02-08-2005, 09:25
But, but...the Chemistry.
If you use compression, then the volume of the garbage must be thousands and thousands of times greater than the volume of the oil. How can you possibly make that more efficient?

By increasing the speed it is produced, and by lowering production costs. :) Simple economics.
Leonstein
02-08-2005, 09:26
Simple economics.
Touché