Anything into Oil(solution to dependence on foregn oil?)

DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 5 ^ | May 2003 | Brad Lemley

[CollegeRepublican]

Appel says, it is "the perfect process for destroying pathogens."

From what I have read, BSE (mad cow) does not breakdown under pressure or heat. It is probably caused by a protien prion that is resistant to these effects. It is an interesting article nonetheless.

[honway]

this one's building a production plant.

Has built a commercial plant that is operational today in Carthage, MO.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/projects/stewardship/turkey120402.html

This thing looks real.

I bet any money the environmental wackos will find something wrong with it though.

[honway]

From the article:

A group of 15 investors and corporate advisers, including Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, stroll among the sparks and hissing torches, listening to a tour led by plant manager Don Sanders. A veteran of the refinery business, Sanders emphasizes that once the pressurized water is flashed off, "the process is similar to oil refining. The equipment, the procedures, the safety factors, the maintenance—it's all proven technology."

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."

"We've got a lot of confidence in this," Buffett says. "I represent ConAgra's investment. We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't anticipate success." Buffett isn't alone.

[m1911]

I got the impression it hadn't started working as of the writing of the article.

"The $20 million facility, scheduled to go online any day, is expected to digest more than 200 tons of turkey-processing waste every 24 hours. "

[m1911]

"I bet any money the environmental wackos will find something wrong with it though."

That's easy - it's still hydrocarbon fuels. It doesn't do anything about greenhouse gases. In fact, it encourages them.

[Orangedog]

I am thinking the same thing. The thing that gets me is that the company has a pilot plant and investors. Real ones, by the sound of this article. Usually these "perpetual motion machine/zero point energy" scams are trying to get investors, this one's building a production plant.

Anytime you see the Buffets buying into something, that's a good indicator that this might be for real. His old man didn't get to be the 2nd richest man in the world by investing in perpetual motion.

[boris]

With a sufficient energy input, any hydrocarbon can be converted into oil or gas. The fly in the ointment is that you might need more energy than can be recovered from the fuel you make. This is not necessarily a bad thing: synthesized gasoline made by energy from a nuclear plant is a wonderful way to store the energy since it is very dense and a liquid.

This has been known for at least a hundred years.

===========================

As I once described here, I was asked to evaluate a German patent which fed a wire of pure aluminum into a tank of water. A high voltage created a spark, which caused the reaction: 2Al +3H2O --> Al2O3 + 3H2. This reaction is an interesting 'redox' one, in which aluminum is oxidized and water is reduced (a neat trick). The resulting hydrogen was used in a modified car engine and burned with air.

No question it would work. BMW tested it.

The teensy little problem(s): All of the oxygen in the water was wasted; sequestered in the dense "ash" of Al2O3 (aluminum oxide) which had to be periodically removed in the form of sludge. Also, with pure aluminum at 70 cents per pound, gasoline would have to cost $12-$15 per gallon to make this scheme economically feasible.

In essence, it is a big storage battery which is charged up at the aluminum smelter by the huge amounts of energy needed to get the aluminum metal out of rock. Indeed, electrical prices and aluminum prices interact in a complex manner; each affecting the other. Some smelters have their own dedicated power plants.

--Boris

[m1911]

Yeah, that struck me too. Definately sounds like this is for real, and it's going to drive the enviroweenies nuts. No more "When you drive alone you drive with Osama" BS.

[Orangedog]

I got the impression it hadn't started working as of the writing of the article.

It's working, just not running in full production mode. It takes quite a while to bring any facility "on-line" for every day business operations. Incoming and outgoing logistics and internal procedures have to be set up for the operation to run at full capacity.

[honway]

I got the impression it hadn't started working as of the writing of the article.

Thanks for pointing that out.I will look for a source that confirms it's operational.

[m1911]

In any case, when I mentioned that it didn't seem to be running yet, I wasn't trying to run it down. This process is great on at least two levels: Waste reduction and energy self-sufficiency. Just being able to feed plastics into it and get oil back without adding more energy than you recover is amazing.

[thinden]

if this technology woulda come on line a couple years ago, we might not be in iraq today?

matter of fact, the entire ME oil industry could become non essential.

plus we won't have to drill alaska!

p.s. tyson industries & all the illinois river floaters will love it!

[honway]

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

The fly in the ointment is that you might need more energy than can be recovered from the fuel you make.

It appears they have solved this problem by using the gas produced in the process to provide the energy requirements.

[Orangedog]

I'm all for anything that lets us tell the Middle East gutter trash to drink their damned oil. In the past, other types of alternative fuels could never get the politcal support, at least in part, because access to ME oil is considered a strategic asset. Now the reality is sinking in that we could very well be shut out of that region in the next 10 to 15 years. Regardless of how successful we have been in Iraq, the leaders in Washington know that the people in that region are a perfect example of fair-weather friends.

[Walkingfeather]

For those poo pooing this ... I am wondering if any of you can tell us here if you have better expertise than this...

"Alf Andreassen, a venture capitalist with the Paladin Capital Group and a former Bell Laboratories director."

I would like to believe your criticism however I know the people that work at Bell labs and I would imagine one would not become director of Bell Labs by moving up from Fry cook. Sometimes people do create amazing things that work even when you do not believe them.

[Tribune7]

bump

[m1911]

Ping

[honway]

Thermal depolymerization, Appel says, has proved to be 85 percent energy efficient for complex feedstocks, such as turkey offal: "That means for every 100 Btus in the feedstock, we use only 15 Btus to run the process." He contends the efficiency is even better for relatively dry raw materials, such as plastics.

[honway]