[festus]

the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running).

Blimey! Perpetual Motion has been discovered again.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Only if 10 tons of auto waste doesn’t contain more than 17 million BTUs of energy. It seems it could, but I don’t know.

[NVDave]

There’s no violation of the laws of thermodynamics here. He’s taking materials containing complex hydrocarbon chains and depolymerizing them. This is a well known process.

The rub is always whether you use dry heat or wet heat, and where you get the mechanical pressure to aid the cracking.