[...] Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water. While no one plans to put people into a thermal depolymerization machine, an intimate human creation could become a prime feedstock. "There is no reason why we can't turn sewage, including human excrement, into a glorious oil," says engineer Terry Adams, a project consultant. So the city of Philadelphia is in discussion with Changing World Technologies to begin doing exactly that.
[...] Today, here at the plant at Philadelphia's Naval Business Center, the experimental feedstock is turkey processing-plant waste: feathers, bones, skin, blood, fat, guts. A forklift dumps 1,400 pounds of the nasty stuff into the machine's first stage, a 350-horsepower grinder that masticates it into gray brown slurry. From there it flows into a series of tanks and pipes, which hum and hiss as they heat, digest, and break down the mixture. Two hours later, a white-jacketed technician turns a spigot. Out pours a honey-colored fluid, steaming a bit in the cold warehouse as it fills a glass beaker.
It really is a lovely oil. "The longest carbon chains are C-18 or so," says Appel, admiring the liquid. "That's a very light oil. It is essentially the same as a mix of half fuel oil, half gasoline."
[...] And it will be profitable, promises Appel. "We've done so much testing in Philadelphia, we already know the costs," he says. "This is our first-out plant, and we estimate we'll make oil at $15 a barrel. In three to five years, we'll drop that to $10, the same as a medium-size oil exploration and production company. And it will get cheaper from there."
garbage in, snake oil out?
This sounds like bullshit to me, but the article says they've actually built the plant already...
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This isn't cool until I can shit in my gas tank and drive to work.
I like that the graphic makes it look like a city improvement from Civ.
The polymer chemistry is relatively well known, but this bit raised a huge red flag for me:
Ummm... what? The conversion from ionic chlorine (as in HCl) to covalent (as in PVC) is crazy expensive; the conversion back is apparently difficult enough to have sponsored a whole industry for chlorinated waste disposal; but we should have just boiled it in water? Jarring..
There was also some guy doing something similar with a giant centrifuge. Sorry, the URL escapes me.
The article didn't link to their home page.
Claiming 85 percent efficiency for such an inherently messy process seriously sets of my bullshit meters. Even transformers only get 90%.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=2699ae02f795899b&rnum=5
Those guys with the wood-chipper could get top dollar if they load up their chipped chickens and drive down to this place.
I hope the place is not in an urban area....P-U.
I belive macromedia owns a patent on stage three ;)