New Technology Turns Garbage Into Gold

Good News Network (via membership-only Discovery.com article) ^ | May 2003 | unattributed

[starbase]

New Technology Turns Garbage Into Gold

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.

Imagine that.

For more info: Changing World Technologies

[Dark Knight]

Here's the gory details:

http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2005/Changing-World-Technologies12apr05.htm

DK

[starbase]

Oops, what's more there are money problems (from the article above:

The revolutionary plant had been turning 270 tons of poultry waste into 300 barrels of crude oil every day. But it was losing money. The turkey oil was much more expensive to produce than projected — the cost of a barrel was double what it sold for.

And the process of cooking turkey entrails, feathers, feces and other waste gave off a terrible stench. Carthage residents sent hundreds of complaints to company, city, state and federal officials.

In 2000, Carthage officials learned their town would be home to the world’s first commercial demonstration plant to turn turkey waste into oil.

The plant was expected to cost $15 million to build, a third of it supplied by a federal grant that Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Roy Blunt, both Missouri Republicans, helped obtain. But problems with the technology caused problems early on. The plant had to be rebuilt at a cost close to $40 million, with money coming from investors and ConAgra. The repairs delayed operation until last year, and plant operators spent a $12 million federal grant, in part, trying to fix the odor problem.

[jec41]

But, something must not add up. It does sound a bit too good to be true.

The process is privately owned and does not sell stock so capital is limited. The profit margin has been somewhat lowered than expected and their are many complaints about odor. The last time I did a study they were using turkey parts and feathers for fuel which were free but then the turkey processors started charging for waste. I think they are building a sewage disposal plant in Philadelphia.

[starbase]

Thanks for the link. One lady says "it's rotten, you can't get away from it, it's like something out of a horror movie".

Ha! I feel sorry for them but I hope they eventually perfect this process.

[starbase]

I wonder if it could convert garbage in existing landfills into oil?

They claim it can, or will eventually.

[jec41]

(One billion barrels could effectively eliminate the need for Persian Gulf imports.)

Nope, we use 7.3 billion barrels a year and 60% of that is imported. Our dependece on imported oil is increasing but a billion barrels a year would sure help.

[gogogodzilla]

True, but I wonder how much of the cost can be recovered simply by tying this into a waste management company.

After all, everyone pays to have their trash disposed of. The Thermal Depolymerization corporation could charge the same rate to collect the trash... and then sell the oil generated from that trash.

I wonder if that would help in recouping the additional cost of generating the oil.

[kenth]

My bet is that he'd give you a chronic case of vapor lock.

[starbase]

I wonder if that would help in recouping the additional cost of generating the oil.

From the link provided by DarkKnight, the owner of the company boils the losses down to not getting the tax credit they expected combined with having to pay for the garbage they use which they thought they would be paid to dispose of (a swing of $76 bucks per ton they didn't expect to spend)

From the article:

Appel and his colleagues had assumed turkey waste would cost nothing because they expected the federal government to put a ban on feeding animal waste to animals. They estimated that processing plants would pay them $24 a ton to take away the offal. But that didn't happen, and Appel now is paying $52 a ton for animal waste, he said. Appel also had high hopes that he would get a $1-a-gallon biofuel tax credit for production costs, or about $42 per barrel. Congress did pass the tax credit, but the definition of biofuel excluded Appel's technology.

The owner is talking about building a new plant in Ireland of which he says:

In Ireland, Appel said, the losses would be reversed because processing plants would pay him to take the waste and the government has a tax credit.

Maybe they'll work it out eventually.

[appeal2]

Teddy Kennedy could become a national treasure.

[Nam Vet]

This will work great in blue states because they have so much more horsesh-t.

You owe me a new keyboard, monitor AND another vodka/tonic ! Comment is not only spot on, it's hilarious.

Nam Vet

[Beagle8U]

"After all, everyone pays to have their trash disposed of."

??? When did that start?

I haven't paid for garbage service for 25yrs. I burn everything but glass, and you can bury that.

[ApplegateRanch]

It works, and the company IS turning out oil from the Butterball waste...BUT!

The company had to $pend beaucoup buck$ on 'post start up glitches' and the local citizenry is complaining (and the company admits) that despite promises and even MORE money, the process is inexplicably stinking up the entire area.

I haven't seen an update for months; they are very chary with actual information about the operation.

Please don't ask for links; I don't have any saved.

[spunkets]

" the process of cooking turkey entrails, feathers, feces and other waste gave off a terrible stench."

You don't say? Amazing! Why do you think they left that out of the original disclosure for the initial subsidies?

[Flying Circus]

Until this guy learns to spell, grammar check (difference between loose and lose, anyone?) and not SHOUT in his writing, I cannot even begin to take him seriously. Once he gets all that nonsense cleaned up he can begin the big task of proving his claims. Hyperbole will not help him in that.