[SierraWasp]

None of the above! Wrong on ALL COUNTS!!! Cedar Dave cleared it all up in reply #86, above:"though not for 20 years or more."

In other words... all this dreamy speculation is irrelivant for at least the next "20 years or more." By that time the phoney energy crisis will be resolved in some other, more conventional way. It happens repeatedly!!!

The laws of thermodynamics, economics and common sense make all this hoplessly laughable on it's face!!! (plus the timing)

[CedarDave]

I have to agree with your timetable on this. As existing domestic oil and gas fields play out (even following use of secondary recovery techniques like water and CO2) and expansion to new plays is fought tooth and nail by the enviro-wackos, oil companies in the US will look for new sources of oil to feed crude pipelines and existing refineries. It may well be a niche source initially, but could become much more important in the future as the third world competes with existing sources of foreign oil for their industrial expansion. Also, I think that the process could be useful in refining tar sands and oil shales with are abundant in the western US but are expensive to refine and have waste disposal problems.

[Wurlitzer]

"The laws of thermodynamics, economics and common sense make all this hoplessly laughable on it's face!!! (plus the timing)"

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.