[honway]

fyi

[Temple Owl]

Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true.

I'll second that!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

As a chemist somewhat familiar with how difficult it is to get chemical reactions to go in the desired direction no matter how pure and carefully selected your starting materials are, I find it hard to believe that a single apparatus could take any carbonaceous starting material and get the reactions to all go the same.

My second thought is that, even if this thing does work, you would almost certainly have to put a lot more energy into it than you could get out of it.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

http://www.changingworldtech.com/techfr.htm

[Gumption]

"The potential is unbelievable," says Michael Roberts

That's what I was thinking too.

[honway]

Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil.

[CollegeRepublican]

[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.

[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

[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

[Consort]

Oil alchemy? Or crude joke?

[William Terrell]

"It will make 21,000 gallons of water, which will be clean enough to discharge into a municipal sewage system."

So much for the world's water "crisis".

[tcostell]

Soylent Green BTTT.

Interesting Technology.

[zeugma]

This is an excellent post!

Ya know, I've been of the opinion for quite a long time, that all we need to solve just about any problem is an american with an idea and investors looking to make a profit.

If the process is as efficient as they are claiming, it could very well have serious geopolitical ramifications over the next 30 years. Just about every large agribusiness would find this process to be useful. I can even imagine the possibility of having folx who grow crops specifically for the purpose of rendering them into oil. These people rock, and I hope for 2 things. First, that it works as stated in the article. Second, for developing it, I hope the investors make obscene amounts of money.

[wita]

It's a dam& muracull. Prounounced with a distinctly southern, and tinge of redneck accent. Actually this is a wait and see hope it works bump.

[Freebird Forever]

Any word on the date of the IPO?

[George W. Bush]

Bump.

The next big thing. Please flag me to any new reports on this process and the tests of the Missouri plant.

I'd buy stock now if it was public. But the Buffets and their buddies have a lock on it, I would guess.

[manic4organic]

"It will make 11 tons of minerals and 600 barrels of oil, high-quality stuff, the same specs as a number two heating oil."

Number two oil. I'll say! That's offal clever.