Posted on 06/15/2004 8:29:27 PM PDT by ckilmer
Ask Umbra: Waste makes haste Grist Magazine - grist magazine
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Dear Umbra,
What is thermal depolymerization?
Ann Freehold, N.J.
Dearest Ann,
A polymer is a large group of linked molecules. We're made of polymers such as protein, eat polymers such as starch, and wear polymers such as leather and nylon. Thermal depolymerization is a heat-driven process that breaks down or transforms polymers into the shorter chains from whence they came: oil. Our planet's automatic transformation of dead dinosaurs and dead cavepeople and other organic matter into petroleum is thermal depolymerization -- the slow conversion of our ancestors into Dodge Caravan fuel.
People who understand science better than you and I are investigating the possibility of artificially speeding up the thermal depolymerization process to take advantage of our waste products and add to the oil supply. One company, Changing World Technologies, is currently refining the process of refining giant food conglomerate ConAgra's turkey offal into refined oil in a Missouri plant. Changing World churns up turkey leftovers, subjects them to high heat, and decants crude oil in far less time than Mother Earth takes to accomplish the same trick. Or at least that's the idea; all this is still under development. Other parties have experimented with swine waste, but in any case, you get the picture; the hope is to transform waste into oil.
To get to what I suspect is the heart of your rather succinct question: Alternative-fuel folks are keeping close tabs on the evolution of this process, which may someday provide one solution to our many waste and fuel problems. Or maybe not. Past attempts to speed up this side of nature have proven too energy intensive to be practical. The folks at CWT and other scientists working with swine waste think they've found a better technique that leverages water, heat, and pressure in an economical and efficient combination. Interested observers, including yourself, are eagerly waiting to see if their successes can be reproduced on a larger scale.
Monomerly, Umbra
(c) 2004, grist magazine
URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=17109
http://www.alternet.org/story/18871
Chickens into Oil
John Gartner , AlterNet
Viewed on Jun 15, 2004
The spike in gas prices and the instability in the Middle East are energizing interest in oil alternatives such as biodiesel and ethanol. But one company has seized on a way to capitalize on two seemingly disparate problems: diminishing oil reserves and wasted animal carcasses. Their solution? Turn the animal carcasses into oil. Turkey and chicken waste products (guts, blood, and carcasses) that are discarded by the ton each day are now being turned into a "bio oil" fuel that can be refined as diesel or gasoline.
For decades, scientists have attempted to rapidly turn animal carcasses or other biomass solids into liquid fuel. Researchers have been refining the "pyrolysis" process of using extreme heat, pressure and a catalyst that is akin to the natural occurrence that turned dinosaurs into petroleum, according to Dr. Richard Cohen, the Graduate Studies Chairman in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Temple University.
In May, a processing plant in Carthage Missouri began turning turkey guts, feathers, blood and carcasses into an oil alternative. Renewable Energy Solutions, a joint venture between ConAgra Foods and Changing World Technologies, is each day transforming 200 tons of material not suitable for the Thanksgiving table into 500 barrels of bio-derived oil. The poultry leftovers come from a ConAgra turkey processing plant located next door. ConAgra produces about 75 common supermarket brand name foods, including Butterball, Chef Boyardee, Hebrew National and Marie Callender's, while Changing World Technologies specializes in processes that convert waste products into fuel.
"Anything you can do with petroleum out of the ground in Texas you can do with our product," said Terry Adams, the Chief Technology officer of Changing World Technologies. Adams said the company's first customer is blending the bio oil into home heating oil, and it can be refined into a gasoline or diesel fuel substitute. According to Adams, it costs Changing World Technologies about $16 per barrel to create the bio oil, which is competitive with the expense of locating and extracting petroleum.
Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, is skeptical of the scheme, and doubts that using animal waste products to create fuel is financially feasible. Lobb said that petroleum is too cheap and animal protein too valuable to create a market. "There is a well-established channel of using animal rendering for industrial products, feed, and fertilizer," Lobb said.
Adams said that unlike other efforts that attempt to convert materials into oil in a single step, his company developed a two-step pyrolysis process that is more cost effective and fuel-efficient. The company's Thermal Conversion Process breaks down the materials so that minerals and other non-organics such as chlorine can be removed, Adams said. Then, the separated liquid organics go to the second stage of thermal processing to produce hydrocarbon oils.
"The basic idea has been around for the some time," Cohen said. The primary challenges are in creating a fuel that has sufficient lubricity (slipperiness) while minimizing the particulate matter that can "gum up" engines and also keeping the cost down. "Getting this balance right has been one of the main problems in creating bio-fuels," Cohen said.
Adams said the company has plans to open three more processing plants in the United States, each with the capability of creating 1,000 barrels of bio oil per day. "Once we've proven it works with two or three plants, there's no reason why we can't open dozens more," Adams said.
With more than 4 billion tons of agricultural animal waste products being produced each year, Adams said it is theoretically possible to create enough bio fuel to replace all of the imported oil.
The waste is generally channeled for use in dog and cat food, fertilizer and livestock feed. The poultry source material may become more expensive if demand as a fuel source rises.
Robb disagrees with the position that there is a large amount of waste that's available as a fuel source. Nearly 100 percent of poultry products are recycled into something useful, he said, with little going to landfills. "Just because something is inedible doesn't mean it goes to waste." Robb said poultry farmers are comfortable with the payments they receive from rendering companies.
Galen Suppes, associate professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia College said that he's familiar with a number of attempts to commercialize the pyrolysis technology, but they all failed because they were too costly. Suppes said that if Renewable Energy Solutions can keep its cost to $16 per barrel "they should be able to find refineries willing to take their product."
Temple's Cohen said that because animal waste product can spread diseases such as mad cow or avian flu, "making it into fuel makes a lots of sense."
Cohen said that pyrolysis technology was explored during the oil crunch of the 1970's, but the government lost interest when oil prices dropped, and it became cost-prohibitive. Cohen said that with government funding, pyrolysis could have been optimized then, but instead the private sector has struggled in its efforts. "We might be in a lot less of a mess now if we would have spent the money then," Cohen said. "Waiting for the free market to do it independently isn't going to happen."
Cohen believes that fuel made from domestic farm products should be subsidized so that they can reduce the need for foreign oil. "We need to develop economical alternative fuel sources that won't fluctuate (like oil prices)," Cohen said. "This observation seems to be missing from the current president's energy plan."
John Gartner writes about environmental technology and alternative energy from his home in Philadelphia.
At last! A way of recycling lawyers.
we don't have an energy shortage, more like an engineering leadership shortage. Nuclear power is the way to go, and not to worry about the waist, it would be much safer than terrorists dirty bombs!
hey, Hey, HEY, there'll be none of that talk!! Nukes bad, Jane Fonda say so--must be true!!
Now oil from turkey guts, that's kewl. We'll produce the heat for the thermal depolymerization by burning pot, I mean, uh... hemp, yeah, "hemp".
"What is thermal depolymerization?"
It's when your winter longjohns shrink too much in the dryer.
I saw this in Discover magazine a few months ago. Some guy in Philadelphia is working on it, too...
I saw this in Discover magazine a few months ago. Some guy in Philadelphia is working on it, too...
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the group mentioned in the discover magazine article and ran the philadelphia plant. they're also the same group mentioned as mentioned in the articles above.
Update in this month's edition.
Oh man. What a bummer. I've been use my turkey leftovers to make soup.
"Waiting for the free market to do it independently isn't going to happen."
Wrong comrade. It's only a benefit to our country when they can make it efficient enough that investors know they will get a return on their money.
I don't think public money should have to weed out quacks, that's what capitalism is for.
Wow! That was a pretty rapid descent away from answering the question and heading towards socio-political aspects that weren't asked about. I sort of expected talk of class struggle, gay rights, and closing the gun show "loophole" in there somewhere, but alas it didn't appear. Maybe a future, more enlightened Mr. Science can weave those topics into the question of what thermal depolymerization is.
"Waiting for the free market to do it independently isn't going to happen."
Wrong comrade. It's only a benefit to our country when they can make it efficient enough that investors know they will get a return on their money.
I don't think public money should have to weed out quacks, that's what capitalism is for.
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actually there already five million each from the DOE and EPA invested in the missouri turkey offal project with much of the rest coming from ConAgra.
Currently the dept of agriculture is guaranteeing 30 million in loans to any biomass conversion plant. I don't know if there are currently any takers.
I don't believe anyone has ever demonstrated the chemical reactions required to turn dinosaurs into the crude we find in the Earth.
Saudi's cost of extracting a barrel of oil is in the 25¢ range.
If this starts to really work the price of petroleum will drop to just below the break even point for "Thermoleum", until the Thermoleum producers are bankrupt, and the facilities are broken up for scrap metal.
Then it's back to $40/bbl. (Maybe I should trade mark Thermoleum™)...
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I think that currently al queda terrorists are working overtime at giving the alternate fuels industry job security. so who do you believe in more:-?
Due to the special clause in the laws of nature (put in by lawyers, no doubt), lawyers can only be recycled into more lawyers. Entropy always grows, you know.
Our planet's automatic transformation of dead dinosaurs and dead cavepeople and other organic matter into petroleum is thermal depolymerization
I don't believe anyone has ever demonstrated the chemical reactions required to turn dinosaurs into the crude we find in the Earth.
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the conagra plant in Missouri is producing an oil similar to No. 4 grade crude oil, ... at prices more than 10 percent less than ... a conventional refinery.
http://www.nynewsday.com/business/printedition/ny-liturk073836915jun07,0,1005048.story?coll=ny-business-print
I'm not denying the existence of thermal depolymerization.
I'm asking if any plausible reactions have been proposed that match the contents of naturally occuring crude.
But can I fool her into believing it's Vaseline instead of heated turkey sh*t?
"The primary challenges are in creating a fuel that has sufficient lubricity (slipperiness) while minimizing the particulate matter that can "gum up"..."
Forget it.
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