Turning turkey into oil: Process gleans fuel from waste

southbendtribune.com ^ | May 16, 2003 | BILL BERGSTROM

[Destro]

May 16, 2003

Turning turkey into oil
Process gleans fuel from waste

By BILL BERGSTROM
Associated Press Writer

Brian Appel, chairman and chief executive officer of Changing World Technologies, holds up a glass vial containing oil produced from turkey products in the company's Philadelphia plant. The CWT plant uses the first commercially successful application of thermal processing to convert organic waste like tires, plastics, raw sewage, plant and animal waste into clean fuel. AP Photo/MARK STEHLE

PHILADELPHIA -- The versatile turkey has been chopped, pressed and processed into foods as diverse as burgers and bacon. Now a Long Island entrepreneur wants to put a turkey in your tank.

Brian S. Appel, chief executive of Changing World Technologies, has developed a process for cooking and pressurizing waste turkey parts -- and lots of other things -- into a golden liquid that can be refined into heating oil, diesel fuel or gasoline.

He has attracted the attention of former CIA Director James Woolsey, who says the process can reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. An adviser to Appel's West Hempstead, N.Y., company, Woolsey traveled to Philadelphia last month for a demonstration of how the process could turn tires into oil.

Appel's process, called thermal depolymerization, is essentially an accelerated version of "the oldest of technologies, one that the Earth uses when it puts vegetables and dinosaurs under pressure" to form petroleum deposits, Woolsey said.

A $20 million facility at ConAgra's Butterball turkey plant in Carthage, Mo., is undergoing testing and expected to start using the technique by the end of May, said Terry Adams, chief technology officer for Changing World Technologies.

The plant ultimately will grind up, heat, pressurize and process 200 tons a day of leftover turkey innards, bones, feathers, fats and grease -- enough to produce 600 barrels of oil daily, officials say.

Appel recently showed off the techniques at a pilot plant at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center.

In one end went tires, ground to quarter-inch bits by a giant industrial shredder. Out the other end came caramel-colored liquid that resembles crude oil.

The plants can sell the oil to

fuel blenders for use in home heating or power-generating fuel. Refineries could process it as they do crude oil. Utilities could burn it for power.

The process will digest just about anything: garbage, medical waste, hog manure, old tires.

Robert C. Brown, an engineering professor at the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies at Iowa State University, said scientists have known for years how to use thermal depolymerization to convert waste into energy.

The problem, he said, is cost. Biological materials, like turkey byproducts, contain water that must be removed before they can be turned into fuel. Brown said biomatter also contains oxygen, which gives it less explosive kick than fossil fuels.

"I'd be surprised if they can do it at a good price," he said.

Appel acknowledged his process isn't competitive with crude oil.

The Missouri plant will need to spend $15 a barrel to turn turkey waste into oil, compared with about $13 a barrel for small exploration and production companies and $5 for a major oil company, he said.

Appel, 44, said the cost will fall as more plants are built. He is also pushing Congress for a clean-fuel subsidy to help it compete.

"If we take the plastics and the tires and the fats and the bones and we turn that into fuels, that will mean much less fossil fuel will need to be dug up out of the ground," Appel said.

Appel said byproducts from the process can be recycled -- water pumped into a community water treatment facility, carbon and minerals sold to make tires and fertilizer and gases like methane piped to generate the plant's electricity.

Environmental officials have shown interest.

In 2001, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a $5 million grant to help develop the Missouri plant.

Changing World Technologies and the $27 billion ConAgra Foods conglomerate formed a partnership to share the rest of the $20 million cost and continue to commercialize the technique.

ConAgra sees as much of a business opportunity as a way to get rid of its own waste, said company spokeswoman Julie DeYoung.

Appel said 11 more projects are planned, including ones at a ConAgra turkey plant in Longmont, Colo., a poultry plant in Enterprise, Ala., and an onion dehydration plant in Fernley, Nev. The three projects received nearly $10 million in grants from the Department of Energy.

[Destro]

The American entrepreneurial spirit can solve anything. Why we bury our waste in huge mounds rather than burn it so as to power our cities is beyond me.

[DuncanWaring]

Also discussed at some length here.

[Destro]

I remembered that article which is why I poseted to extended news.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Junk science

[ParityErr]

Bump for later reading

[the lone wolf]

I'd like to know just how much energy the process uses to make the "fake crude oil" vs. how much energy the oil would produce when burned.

[Destro]

The article talks about it.

The Missouri plant will need to spend $15 a barrel to turn turkey waste into oil, compared with about $13 a barrel for small exploration and production companies and $5 for a major oil company, he said.

The trade off is not that it produces cheap oil, etc,. but that it will produce useable oil at a price that will allow mass bio-waste products to be disposed of in ways that may help the energy reserves of this nation rather than stinking up landfills.

[Sonny M]

Its not junk science, its just more expensive, and not efficient. Scientists have done this type of research for years, and succeeded, the problem is, the money costs are just stupid and ridiculous and there is no upside. Its still oil, its still crude, all the same environmental wackos are going to hate this anyway, and they sure as hell aren't going to want to pay more, so this is all irrelevant.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

its just more expensive, and not efficient.
Yes this is why I call it junk science

[Destro]

junk science should be used to define things junk like magnets curing back aches. This is not junk science since the science part of it does work. It will produce "oil" in the quantities talked about. Will it make a profit? That is up to the free market and govt regulations.

[MarkT]

But at the end of the day, this entrepreneur must go hat in hand to a bunch of political whores and get a hand out because his process is not better than the market place. When he can lower his product cost of prodcution to a level where he does not need our tax dollars as well as the market place sales dollar, then he has something. Otherwise, he is just another promoter who wants someone else to pay him for being clever and getting close to a marketable product.

[Drammach]

It seems to me, that getting rid of millions of tons of waste is worth the cost / benefit ratio.

Just getting rid of millions (billions?) of old tires would clean up the environment, and provide energy and recycled materials.

It's not like we have to depend on this process exclusively, but when used in a judicious manner, to solve problems concerning waste disposal, this method is preferable to shipping waste to some third world country.

[American in Israel]

And now you know why the Islamic Horde is making it's move now. If they do not move now, they will not have the funds to do so ten years from now. Russia has put all its chips on the oil game too. A lot of players must either throw over the table at this point in the game or take their losses.

Prepare for all hell to break loose, this obscure invention has changed the rules of the game for the world.

[William Terrell]

You guys are almost certainly on the losing side of this issue. Most of all industrial processes we take for granted now began as overly expensive ventures. Quantity of processing sites and the refinement of the processes themselves brought the costs down. Same with this one.

[nygoose]

This is how the ethanol scam was started. Look for Tyson foods to expand into turkey processing ASAP.

[Jimmy Valentine]

It would be interesting to offset the cost of processing this material into oil with the cost of landfill operation/other waste disposal to see if the "all in" cost is that high. The trade-off may get the price in range.

Over time, I am sure the efficiency of improved process will bring the price down anyway.

Regards,

[Tokhtamish]

But doesn't this leave out the fact that that garbage was going to have to be disposed of somehow, in any case ? Subtract from the per barrel cost what you aren't now spending on garbage disposal.

Maybe ten years down the road people will save on their fuel bills by routinely feeding their garbage into these units. Home heating oil is the perfect application.

[Sonny M]

I'm not on the losing side, I'm quite optimistic but also very very cautious, this is like telling me you have the cure for cancer, I want to see how this plays out before I get any kind of hope up.

[George W. Bush]

Warren Buffet and his son are key investors in this. So the smart money is betting on the process for the first time. Also, the technology will become cheaper over the next 5-10 years. Unmentioned in this article is that the process can decontaminate any waste except nuclear waste, considerably alleviating the cost of toxic materials disposal.

The points that others are making here that this is nothing new is true. But it is equally true that this process is far more efficient than anything previously seen. I would favor a subsidy only for toxic waste disposal. And decreasing our foreign energy dependence would be a very good thing.

I wish they'd gone public as I would buy stock in this one.

[Sonny M]

I'm hoping a decade, if this works, this could wind up one of the biggest advances in mans history, I am however, very very cautious, and am going to see what happens before I get my hopes up.

Side note, is it just me, or did anyone think "back to the future" with Mr. Fusion?