Oil crisis solved? Interesting alternative syn oil/fuel article in Motor Trend

[Guest bastaad525]

Hey I did a search and didn't find a thread about this already posted so thought I'd post myself. I just recieved this months issue of Motor Trend in the mail, the one with the Challenger R/T concept and two cop cars chasing on the cover. In it I read a VERY interesting article about (yes yet another) possible new source of alternative fuel. This one sounds a lot more feasible than hydrogen fuel cells or hybrid cars, IMO, as it's a technology that's already being used and can be used to produce fuels that should be usable in current vehicles as regular gasoline or similiar to ethanol. And it basically uses (some types of) garbage to make it's fuel.

 

Well I guess it'd be better to just post the article since it's not on their website yet...

 

MODS: I don't know for sure if this is kosher or not, if not by all means let me know and edit the post if need be, don't want to cause any legal issues... I'd rather have just linked to the article if they had it up.

 

- Cancel those doomsday predictions' date=' stop fretting about oil shortages and let's pull the troops out of the Middle East. Our worries are over. Poof. Gone. Oh, and stop stressing about where we're going to put our trash, old tires, and other postconsumer waste, while you're at it. In other words, don't worry, be happy, good old fashioned Yankee ingenuity has saved the day.

- Through the miracle of modern chemistry, mankind has learned how to quickly and efficiently do unto trash, organic matter, poultry guts, and most other foul and nasty gunk what Mother Earth needed millennia to do unto dinosaurs and dead plants: Heat it up, squash it down, and chop up its long organic molecules and proteins into nice, short hydrocarbon chains. "Anthing Into Oil," the headlines proclaim.

- Even your old derelict clunker can fuel your gleaming new machine. Here's how: After it's picked clean of useful spare parts, it gets flattened and dispatched to one of 200 shredders nationwide. Big machines smash and grind it up into fist-size and smaller chunks. Magnets snatch out the iron and steel, eddy current separators find the other metals, and the rest of the "fluff" is sifted to remove fine particles and glass from the plastics, cloths, rubber, and foam. This stuff - about 20 percent of the mass of the car, which now hits the landfill - is mixed with water and oil and fed into a tank where it's pressure cooked for under an hour at about 600 psi and 500 degrees F (the exact temps and pressuers vary with the feed stock). The water provides a bunch of hydrogen molecules for binding with the carbon chains, and the oil helps dissolve the plastics. Nasty chlorine, bromine, and PCB's turn to harmless salts and acids, not dioxins. Scary biological agents in feedstocks like medical or animal waste are also destroyed. When the slurry is done cooking, the pressure is quickly released, allowing the water to boil off, leaving several useful products: a light, home-heating grade of oil that ca be further refined to diesel, gasoline, etc.; more than enough syngas (similiar to natural gas) to fuel the production process; residual metals that can be sold for scrap; and organic matter that can be burned for heat or used as fertilizer.

- Changing World Technologies developed the process and is running a plant in Carthage, Missouri, that daily transforms 300 tons of pungent turkey guts and pig fat into 500 barrels of sweet D396 heating oil. Only 15 to 20 percent of the energy content of the oil and gas output is consumed in it's production, making the process more efficient than rendering ethanol from corn. So far, the economics haven't work out as well for the turkey operation, largely because CWT pays $30 a ton for it's waste (it's otherwise sold as poultry feed). Plastics promise slightly better efficiency (they contain more organic matter), and land-filling shredder residue currently costs $25 to $75 per ton, so it can be assumed to be free, at least in the near term. Per GM reserch engineer Candace Wheeler, the Big Three's Vehicle Recycling Partnership used these assumptions to forecast oil production costs at about $22 per barrel in a plant processing 150 to 300 tons of shredder residue a day - less in a larger plant. Imagine a nationwide network of such plants. Landfills could stop growing (and maybe shrink, if we'd strip mine our Mount Trashmores for feedstock), and oil production could be proportionately distributed with the population. The system appears to work, and it promises to solve a lot of society's thornier problems. Here's hoping Big Oil welcomes this noble competition. [/quote']

 

Is this freakin cool or what?!?!?! Using TRASH to make fuel!! What more abundant 'resource' is there in the nation?

 

Does this remind anyone else of Back to the Future 1 and 2 where the Doc comes back from 2015 and has that contraption on the back of the Delorean that turns trash into fuel?

 

I hope some of you guys find this article as interesting and exciting as I... I'd hate to think I typed it all up for nothing and I hope it's not any problem for me to post it...

 

I think it's good to know there is yet another option out there, a possible way that once the oil supplies dwindle down, we may still be able to drive our regular old gasoline powered cars... now hopefully, as the original author states, Big Oil will not do anything to hinder the expansion of this new technology!!

[mason4300]

Yeah, I have a subscription, interesting and useful concept. It reminds me of Back to the Future 2, when Doc is dumping trash into that thing he got installed on the Delorean when he went to the future.

[savageskaterkid]

I read that, and it seems like a great idea, use the stuff from the landfills though. The junkyards are more then useful on most older vehicles. Lets do it.

[Lunar240z]

you must mean "Mr.Fusion"

 

[MusPuppis]

This is VERY interesting, very very.

 

It almost sounds too good to be true, which scares me.. I'm gonna try to dig up some more info on this and keep an eye on it.

[Pop N Wood]

People have been making biodesiel and ethonol out of farm waste for years. Many new landfills have vents to extract methane from the rotting garbage.

 

Recycling trash is nothing new. I wouldn't get too excited just yet. The problem is in the numbers. The world uses a LOT of fuel. The big question is can they make enough of this cheaply enough to make a difference.

[mason4300]

Well, it'd still be good to convert trash to something useful instead of burying it where it'll sit for hundreds of lifetimes...I'm not some enviro-nut, but when something that is obviously good for multiple things, like this, comes up, I think it's smart.

[cygnusx1]

How much energy does it take to pressure cook garbage? How much emmisions is generated during the pressure cooking process? What is the rate of production? How much garbage can be used for fuel? I bet we use more fuel than we generate useable garbage.

 

There are alot of points to consider before breathing easy. I'll try dumping some trash into my gas tank tomorrow to see what happens.

[MusPuppis]

Only 15 to 20 percent of the energy content of the oil and gas output is consumed in it's production, making the process more efficient than rendering ethanol from corn

 

Doesnt mention fumes or emissions, but it does mention the efficiency of the process.

[savageskaterkid]

Its a huge posiblity that we use more fuel then the garbage we can refine, but is that REALLY a big deal, worse case scenario-we run out of garbage. More space, less stink, were all happy. As long as it doesn't make a big cloud of smoke that doesn't seem to go away.

[Guest bastaad525]

Its a huge posiblity that we use more fuel then the garbage we can refine, but is that REALLY a big deal, worse case scenario-we run out of garbage. More space, less stink, were all happy. As long as it doesn't make a big cloud of smoke that doesn't seem to go away.

 

 

agreed... this probably wouldn't make enough fuel to supply the whole country/world for some great length of time, but who cares? There are many other benefits here that would I think would definately make it worth the effort. From the article though it does seem they could make quite a bit of fuel from this....

[MusPuppis]

I dont see it as the solution to ALL our problems, but an alternative and supplimental supply that eats up the ever increasing garbage pile is a good thing.

[JMortensen]

Ever seen the TV show Bullsh!t? They had a special on recycling and the "landfill crisis" of the 80's. Turns out the landfill crisis is a bunch of hooey. I don't mind making biofuel from trash and I think its a great idea especially if the fuel produced can run the machines to produce it, but I think we consume a hell of a lot more oil than we can produce from trash, and all of the other recycling is more of an expensive feel good exercise than a service to the environment or the economy, with the exception of aluminum which is cheaper to recycle than to mine and process.

 

By the way I was watching "Dirty Jobs" and they were making compost out of food waste that was used in the vineyards of Napa valley. I guess if this biofuel thing goes as planned then they'll need a new source of compost...

[Cal Poly Zmanaustin]

 

By the way I was watching "Dirty Jobs" and they were making compost out of food waste that was used in the vineyards of Napa valley. I guess if this biofuel thing goes as planned then they'll need a new source of compost...

 

Hey, I saw that too. I will never look at a bottle of Merlot the same. It is funny how they referred to the compost as "gold".