I followed that story about Changing World Technologies and the related one about the Con Agra (Butterball) turkey waste recyling plant. But no updates, not even on their web site.
Is it economically unfeasible ?
The technology works, turning any carbon based waste stream into oil. The Con Agro plant is a success in that respect.
As to is it economically viable...
the feed stock for such a plant is a 0 cost at a minimum or a profit - there will always be someone willing to get rid of their particular kind of waste at 0 cost and there will always be some who will pay to get rid of their waste.
The process itself is about 85% energy efficient - meaning you get out about 85% of the energy you put into the process. In the specific case of ConAgro's test plant that's 200 barrels of oil a day.
Additionally, you get 2 important byproducts from the process. Again, particular to the ConAgro test plant, you get 25 tons of what ammounts to a very good fertilizer and about 125 tons of water that meets all EPA guidelines for direct release into rivers. To be honest, it acceeds to water quality of a number of cities.
The 200 barrels a day of oil - oil that is readily used in diesel engines or oil fired furnaces - ammounts to about 1.6 million at $40 a barrel assuming a 200 day per year operating schedule. In reality the day/year operating schedule is closer to 275 but I like conservative estimates.
the 200 barrels of oil equates to 1.8 million gallons of diesel/fuel oil - that equates to about 2 million dollars at today's wholesale prices paid by local dealers.
The plant cost about 27 million to construct and fine tune.
In terms of cash flow, rather than operating expense, it's a very profitable endeavour.
But there are other benifits.
Partial insulation from energy price spikes, elimination of disposal fees, elimination of water treament expenses, reduction in workforce, sale or lack of cost for quality fertilizer....
Is it economically viable in terms of a profit - marginally plus. You won't lose money on the deal but it is not a money maker either. The savings for a company like ConAgro comes from the elimination of other expenses and/or sale of byproducts of the process. Amazingly, there is still room for efficiency improvements in the process through blending with other technologies.
So long as the feed stock for the process is free the endeavour is a break even on the plus side proposition to the bottomline but a net plus to the cash flow. If a profit can be made off of receiving the feedstock, it's a profitable business model.
I understand that the energy return for the turkey feedstock is much lower than the energy return for say tires. So again, more profit can be made with a different source of feed stock. BTW, the primary byproduct of tires as a feed stock is activated carbon - of the variaty that is used in common water filtration units.
Why the environuts aren't all over this process is beyond me. It's a net plus to the environment for none petroleum based feed stocks at little or no overall cost and a zero sum game for petroleum based feed stocks.
Take a look at the Wankel Engines being developed by UC Berkeley. Penny Sized Wankel?