Posted on 04/13/2004 10:24:01 AM PDT by m1-lightning
URBANA, Ill. - A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity.
Years of research and fine-tuning are ahead before the idea could be commercially viable, but results so far indicate there might be big benefits for farmers and consumers, lead researcher Yanhui Zhang said.
"This is making more sense in terms of alternative energy or renewable energy and strategically for reducing our dependency on foreign oil," said Zhang, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. "Definitely, there is potential in the long term."
The thermochemical conversion process uses intense heat and pressure to break down the molecular structure of manure into oil. It's much like the natural process that turns organic matter into oil over centuries, but in the laboratory the process can take as little as a half-hour.
A similar process is being used at a plant in Carthage, Mo., where tons of turkey entrails, feathers, fat and grease from a nearby Butterball turkey plant are converted into a light crude oil, said Julie DeYoung, a spokeswoman for Omaha, Neb.-based Conagra Foods, which operates the plant in a joint venture with Changing World Technologies of Long Island, N.Y.
Converting manure is sure to catch the attention of swine producers. Safe containment of livestock waste is costly for farmers, especially at large confinement operations where thousands of tons of manure are produced each year. Also, odors produced by swine farms have made them a nuisance to neighbors.
"If this ultimately becomes one of the silver bullets to help the industry, I'm absolutely in favor of it," said Jim Kaitschuk, executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers Association.
Zhang and his research team have found that converting manure into crude oil is possible in small batches, but much more research is needed to develop a continuously operating reaction chamber that could handle large amounts of manure. That is key to making the process practicable and economically viable.
Zhang predicted that one day a reactor the size of a home furnace could process the manure generated by 2,000 hogs at a cost of about $10 per barrel.
Big oil refineries are unlikely to purchase crude oil made from converted manure, Zhang said, because they aren't set up to refine it. But the oil could be used to fuel smaller electric or heating plants, or to make plastics, ink or asphalt, he said.
"Crude oil is our first raw material," he said. "If we can make it value-added, suddenly the whole economic picture becomes brighter."
Zhang's site: Zhang's site: http://www.age.uiuc.edu/faculty/yhz/index.htm
Bingo! The intent of this technology is not to produce significant amounts of oil, it's a politically-correct means to dispose of offal and feces.
For some reason I am reminded of AlGore's involvement in the Molten Metal waste disposal scam. Molten Metal executives say technology, not politics, led to grants
Yes... He's been "piling on" of late!!!
Sam the Sham, search back up the thread, I dug up the numbers on argicultural waste, and they don't support the assertion that ( convert ag waste ) = ( replace all imported oil ). Even at today's consumption rate of petroleum, if we could convert right now, it would amount to about two-thirds of our import demand. But our rate of consumption is anticipated to only increase in the future, and the percentage that is imported is also anticipated to only increase as well. So the share of imported oil we can replace from agricultural waste stream is bound to decrease from this two-thirds figure today, if anything.
But the gist of your point is received. Assuming that the significant engineering obstacles are surmounted and we scale up the reaction chambers by orders of magnitude, we could apply TDP to all organic waste streams, not just that produced by agriculture. However, even granting the assumption is fulfilled, using this technique as a replacement of imported petroleum would still be a stretch. Theoretically possible if we capture all industrial organic waste streams, and enough of the waste stream out of manufacturing activities can make up the 1/3 remaining imported oil to supplant, for example.
Theoretically possible, that is, if we grant another assumption: that we figure out how to logistically arrange for relatively "pure" feedstock supplies. As I understand the process with my poor college chemistry knowledge, this isn't some kind of Mr. Fusion that we can indiscriminately dump organic waste into. As near as I can tell the process is only profitably efficient if stuff like turkey renderings is separated from tires and processed in different reaction chambers (or different batches) using different "recipes". Hence, the need for inputs that are relatively "pure" or homogenous.
Not saying that we won't be able to replace imported oil using this technique. I'm already convinced that if they scale it beyond a certain level we'll be able to affect prices being set at the margin; as consumers we'll notice that at certain times of the year fuel prices will dip lower than usual in the past (ag waste streams are seasonal in output rate). I'm just saying that the devil is in the details, and we have a lot of details between the Carthage pilot plant and complete imported energy dependence relying upon TDP alone for the offset. That might be a little too much to hope for at this point.
Fortunately, we don't have to have complete independence (though that would be nice, and we should still strive for it) to be effective in dealing with imported oil suppliers. Just being able to pressure prices downward is enough leverage to extract political concessions from them that will (possibly) increase pressure for the desired social and economic results.
From burning some of the produced oil. Once you get the system started, it is self sustaining. "Intense heat" isn't all that high, 800° in a steam environment.
Too bad it's so hard on the birds, and eyes...
By rubbing two Girl Scouts together...
The average is one bird per windmill per year. Meanwhile something like 500,000,000 birds die by smacking into buildings each year. No one really cares about that when new building are build though. Imaging how many billions of birds are killed by cars, trucks and planes each year.
PS many of us think windmills are beautiful.
I bet with a little heat, pressure and steam, it could make a lot of light sweet crude...
No law being broken. Simply up to 85% of the Potential energy contained in the waste can be recovered. They claim to use the other 15% to run the process.
The plant in Philly seems to be working and I don't think ConAgra would be building or have already built a full scale turkey guts processing plant if this were junk science.
I wish all the people on this thread who are looking for a SINGLE SILVER Bullet would see the bigger picture. ANYTHING which reduces our dependence on camel jockey oil is a good thing. It does not have to replace 100% of the oil.
The real encouraging application is using USA coal as the "waste" input and removing all the problematic byproducts and converting them to useful materials in conjunction with the energy contained in the coal. Stuff that up the camel jockeys you know what.
You chide me for supposedly not reading the article, yet provide an example that was not in the article. Interesting, did YOU read the article?
"For instance in ALL agricultural waste were fed into this process, it would replace ALL imported oil."
LOL, my you are a gullible newbie, aren't you? Care to provide the actual numbers to back up that outrageous claim?
--Boot Hill
Debating this is just another form of intellectual masturbation, irrelevant and immaterial!!!
It is absurd on it's face, non-productive and a utter waste (there's that word again) of useful bandwidth!!!
You'd all get just as much out of wishing in one hand and spitting in the other!!! It's as silly as the 9-11 commission witch hunt and to me... just as disgusting. I see no need to twitch and flinch and buy all the fallatious arguments that "even a hog roots up a berry, now and then!"
America and Americans are greater and smarter than THIS!!!
Obviously, not ALL Americans SierraWasp. Some seem to have a vested interest in this process being a fraud. You would seem to fall into this category. I do not understand all the emotional energy being spent on disproving this process. Facts proving that you cannot take a material with X amount of potential energy and end up X-Y% would change my opinion. However so far I have not seen any FACTS which disprove this process. Maybe someone will post hard facts that this is impossible and we can all agree.
I follow the money and when I see major corporations building production facilities I tend to think it may be more than smoke and mirrors. Corporations are not always correct (that's an understatement) but they tend to research things before they spend millions on construction. Maybe you would like to speak to someone at ConAgra and tell them their new facility is bogus.
Oh good, because the corn farmers (ADM) gave to Bush, now we're gonna have ethenol in our gas.
Is your Volvo the true SUV or the all wheel drive one?
Both, it's an XC90-T6-AWD and the only car we've ever owned that my wife loves, including our Cadillac Seville which I loved.
Only in your fantasies...Will your next question be "what are you wearing?
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