Research: Pig Manure Can Become Crude Oil

Yahoo ^ | 04/13/04 | JIM PAUL

[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

[Fundamentally Fair]

If they could perfect this, I'd be happier that a pig in...well, you know.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Go to their website and see the data. Trust me, if they were not truly able to do this, they would not be running a plant right at this moment commercially.

This isn't 100% effecient or even 90%, but it's enough that this will be profitable one day and will solve a lot of storage and removal expense from these animal processing plants. People seem to get it in their heads that this is just about the energy the plants can produce. It's also about landfill issues, waste storage and transport issues, and quality of life issues for those with these animal processing plants in their communities.

Carthage, MO expects to have half of their city power generated from this plant within a few years, and the turkey plant will save a ton of money not having to store or ship the waste products.

[caisson71]

Pig Manure? We have a mother load in DC!!

[LRS]

Reminds me of one of the Mad Max/Road Warrior movies where there was a scene of pig manure being stirred as the gas from it was used to heat the living quarters compound.

Mad Max beyond Thunderdome. A place caled "Bartertown" gets its engery from pig manure. The ongoing power struggle pits Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), who founded the town, and runs things above ground, against the "two headed entity" of "Master/Blaster", who provides the energy source from pig manure. I got a kick out of brains of Master/Blaster duo, a dwarf, when he calls for an embargo and cuts the power, and refers to himself as "Me big Arab". It's amazing how far being PC has come in the 19 years since that line was used. I doubt they could get by with it in today's world...

[biblewonk]

Yes the Nantucket issue is very irritating for us windmillers. Those limousine liberals must be a whole different breed of human being. They have gone so far as to print false reports about the developer that said he is an underhanded businessman. They quotes some source which was later discovered to be a fabrication yet they can't find who invented the story. Meanwhile financers of the project pulled support and had to be reconvinced of the business case. Liberals will stoop to any level.

[TC Rider]

Hmmm, if this were true, the Clintons would be oil barons.

[Billthedrill]

...Reminds me of one of the Mad Max/Road Warrior movies...

MasterBlaster run Bartertown!

[Recovering_Democrat]

GROUND ZERO FOR PIG MANURE!
Democrats finally contribute to the nation's energy needs.

[SuziQ]

"This plant will make 10 tons of gas per day, which will go back into the system to make heat to power the system," he says. "It will make 21,000 gallons of water, which will be clean enough to discharge into a municipal sewage system. Pathological vectors will be completely gone. It will make 11 tons of minerals and 600 barrels of oil, high-quality stuff, the same specs as a number two heating oil." He shakes his head almost as if he can't believe it. "It's amazing. The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't even consider us waste handlers. We are actually manufacturers—that's what our permit says. This process changes the whole industrial equation. Waste goes from a cost to a profit."

From an article, "Anything Into Oil" about the process; thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. Looks like it may be more efficient than other energy producing industries.

[hresources]

Interesting. Oil made from pig manure....Could we use this to heat homes and fuel cars in the Middle Eastern countries?

[samtheman]

I like the part about the asphalt. It will keep Muslims off the roads.

[Ditto]

Now this WILL strong-arm OPEC...

I don't know about that. I'm sure we have a lot of pig s*** in this country, but I doubt it is enough to put a dent in the amount of oil we import --- unless of course we can get drilling rights to Teddy Kennedy's septic system. ;~))

[Blood of Tyrants]

Many places. Your point?

[SierraWasp]

"Believe, or disbelieve .... "

You are obviously oblivious to the obvious in your "belief system!" It's one thing to join the scofflaw liberals, but it's quite another to jump to dreamy conclusions with the scofflaws of the laws of nature!!!

[reagan_fanatic]

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.

All well and good, but who's going to follow Michael Moore around all day with a bucket and a pooper-scooper? Hmmm?

[SuziQ]

Oops! Didn't see your link to the Discover Magazine article. Our #2 son brought it home from college last summer. What a fascinating concept! Looks like it can't lose, unless the environmentalists are allowed to muck it up! Don't see how they could, but they'll try mightily, I'm sure!

[MineralMan]

Methane production from manure has been used for a very long time. A typical use is to heat dairy barns in winter. It's quite effective and uses very simple technology.

Larger-scale plants exist that operate on sewage, and are part of the sewage treatment facility.

While hog manure is probably not in large enough supply to generate a huge amount of gas and oil, consider human sewage...essentially the same thing. If every sewer plant in the country were generating usable methane for fuel and oil from our human sewage, we'd be talking about a large operation with large output.

This is not bogus technology, and it's not liberal technology. It's just technology.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

It doesn't break the laws of nature, and I'm not sure why people keep claiming that it claims to break the laws of nature. It's not getting more energy than it takes in. But neither does refining raw crude pumped from the ground.

This isn't hippy-flower-powered-good-vibrations-energy-creation, this is a very inventive use of physics to reduce carbon based waste into usable fuel in a few hours rather than let nature do it over thousands and millions of years in a landfill.

[Final Authority]

We consume about 1.3 million tons of oil per day in the USA. Although I think that conversion of waste is a good idea does anyone have any idea how much organic waste will have to be converted to establish a distributive market for the product of such waste?

[Lee'sGhost]

"Reminds me of one of the Mad Max/Road Warrior movies where there was a scene of pig manure being stirred as the gas from it was used to heat the living quarters compound. "

Yeah. Didn't think of that till you mentioned it. It was Thunder Dome.