From Turkey Guts to Fuel Oil 411
Untimely Ripp'd writes "The latest issue of Discover Magazine reports that any day now a plant will go online in Carthage, Missouri that processes turkey guts into high grade oil, natural gas, some minerals, and water. Unfortunately, the Discover article isn't online yet, but here's a newspaper article. The system, developed by Changing World Technologies uses thermal depolymerization and apparently works on almost any and every kind of organic waste. They assert that applying it to 100% of the US' agricultural waste would produce about 4 billion barrels of oil per year -- about the amount we currently import.
It sounds too good to be true, it sounds like one of those fly-by-night-in-the-face-of-the-second-law deals, but it isn't happening in somebody's basement -- it's happening in a multi-million dollar facility developed with Con-Agra."
Or outlaw it like hemp (Score:3, Informative)
Bad day for a good story... (Score:5, Informative)
The article also talked about no increases in carbon in the environment because oil isn't pulled up from underground, it's created from biological waste (carbon already in the environment). I believe there was a quote in there along the lines of "every living thing becomes a little carbon sink".
Warren Buffett is an investor (via ConAgra) and the field tests should be done by 2005.
Re:Paranoid (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Old article... (Score:3, Informative)
Not a Joke. (Score:5, Informative)
There are two plants either in operation now, or just starting up. One is right next to a Butterball Turkey factory.
The process breaks organic materials down thru some process of super-hydration, 500 degree heat, some moderate amount of pressure, and then results in various oils and water (clean enough to go into normal treatment plants).
Also, oil companies reportedly support this because the novel approach is actually easier and cleaner for processing crude oils than existing refineries. So they stand to gain from this as well.
There's a lot of good info on this, so don't discount it just because
I hope it's a huge success.
More info (Score:4, Informative)
Re:depolymerization? (Score:3, Informative)
old news (Score:4, Informative)
you will find similar articles, mostly from the summer of 2001 ?!!?. (Google cached story from Kansas City Tribune [216.239.51.100])
Either the people involved are doing a series of pilot plants in scaling this up, or somebody's dragging their feet. Or maybe it's just a case parallel developments utilizing similar technology -- but it sure sounds like the same thing.
The prospect of $14/barrel high-quality oil (the cost quoted in Discover) while providing an environmental service should have the capitalists breaking down the doors. It seems like they're taking a leisurely route to large-scale exploitation -- what's going on here?
Shouldn't we have oil companies partnering with ConAgra and building refineries adjacent to slaughterhouses? Or at least set up a pipeline to a refinery?
this company has been in the news before (Score:2, Informative)
Here is an article discussing the ground-breaking of the TDP plant next to the Butterball factory in 2001.
If it is an April Fool's hoax, they went through a LOT of trouble to do it well.
Re:And how much energy does it take to make? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Getting rid of fossil fuels? (Score:2, Informative)
Ummmmmm..... nope.
Discover magazine has been known to pull a couple of good ones come 4/1, but this is not one of them. First of all, this is in the MAY issue of the magazine (magazines usually publish a month early, remember).
I read this story three or four days ago when the issue appeared in my snail-mail folder.
This issue may not be on newsstands yet, but if you know somebody who has a subscription, then they probably already have it.
Is This True ? Or April Fools? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.joplinglobe.com/archives/2002/020806
http://www.joplinglobe.com/archives/2001/010729
http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/projects/
Good but overrated (Score:5, Informative)
1) Using biomass means that all carbon embodied in the fuel is from CO2 relatively recently removed from the atmosphere. Petrolium products when burned dump carbon into the carbon cycle (CO2->Plant Biomass -> many possible steps (optional) -> decomposition -> CO2. This is good because biomass fuels don't increase CO2 levels in our atmosphere as fossil fuels do.
2) On the negative side, there is a lot of fuel involved in raising, the turkeys (equipment relating to feed, transport of feed, raising the turkeys, transporting them, slaughtering them, transporting the guts to the factory, etc).
My suspician is that we will see it use less fuel than transporting the guts of the turkey to the factory, processing them, etc. and since these parts are currently unused, it will ge a good thing. However, I suspect that we will not see a net fuel gain from this process (more fuel will go into raising/transporting feed, etc. than you will get out of the turkey) and so it can only subsidize the fuel cost of raising a turkey, not completely even mitigate that.
That being said, I am all for it. I think that if we looked at methane digesters for manure of all marge animal farms, this sort of project, etc. it would reduce our petrolium consumption and allow us to leave a smaller ecological footprint.
Re:not a joke - and NOT the same as biodiesel (Score:4, Informative)
No adjustments are required to run Biodiesel in any diesel engine made in the last decade or so. The problem is that Biodiesel can eat through some old types of rubber used in seals and fuel lines. Modern diesel engines do not use these types of rubber. Older engines could be retrofitted just by changing out old rubber lines, maybe needed anyway if the car is old enough! The only other thing is that biodiesel will dissolve engine deposits, since American diesel no. 2 is dirty, there can be a lot of deposits. If you have driven a while on regular diesel, biodiesel can lossen deposits, which can then clog fuel filters. Diesels have to replace the fuel filter pretty regularly - so it shouldn't be much of an issue.
Check out Biodiesel.org [biodiesel.org] or BioDieselNow.com [biodieselnow.com] for more info.
Lots of Volkswagen TDI owners [tdiclub.com] use Biodiesel [tdiclub.com].
To remain on topic - there is a plant near Salt Lake City, Utah that is doing something similar to this. Smithfield Foods Inc. [smithfield.com] will be making BioMethanol from pork waste. [nationalhogfarmer.com]
Re:Ever heard of vegetable oil? (Score:3, Informative)
You don't even need to convert the engine. Used cooking oil (animal or vegetable) treated with a little glycerine works cleanly in an unmodified diesel car.
News item here [guardian.co.uk]