Wow! Talk about alternative fuels!!!

Now here is an amazing technology:

Turkeys turned into fuel

Here is the Discover article that is referred to:

Anything into Oil

Here is an excerpt from the Discover article:

...thermal depolymerization...waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products...high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing.

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.

...in Carthage, Missouri, about 100 yards from one of ConAgra Foods' massive Butterball Turkey plants, sits the company's first commercial-scale thermal depolymerization plant. 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.

"This plant will make 10 tons of gas per day, which will go back into the system to make heat to power the system," he says. "It will make 21,000 gallons of water, which will be clean enough to discharge into a municipal sewage system. Pathological vectors will be completely gone. It will make 11 tons of minerals and 600 barrels of oil, high-quality stuff, the same specs as a number two heating oil."

Just in case you are wondering..."number two heating oil" is the same as the number two diesel that I can burn in my 2003 VW Golf TDI. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Very, very cool!

I'm all for it if it can turn waste products into oil. Instead of ending up in the landfills, why not turn waste food products into energy...

I just hope it gets the funding and political backing it usually would need to get completely off the ground.
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Methane is an easily extracted fuel gas that's clean. It is actually biologically produced (has anyone heard the flatulating cows story?) The methane produced in cows guts is actually the product of a microbe present in cows and many other animals. Now, it would be rather impractical to go around trying to collect the methane from cow-flatulence, but it would be quite possible to breed the microbe under lab conditions and produce gas commercially from any organic material.
Methane also occurs naturally underground; whether in commercially viable quantities one doesn't know.
Then, vehicles would have to be adapted to use the fuel. There's no reason not to be able to run bike and car engines off this fuel, which should produce no exhaust smoke at all. The by-products produced from burning methane would simply be carbon dioxide and water! The cars and bikes of the future could be "peeing" fizzy water!

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ikendu said:
...in Carthage, Missouri, about 100 yards from one of ConAgra Foods' massive Butterball Turkey plants, sits the company's first commercial-scale thermal depolymerization plant. 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.


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Should it become more profitable to make fuel from turkeys than food, then you'll find the food production taking a back seat in production. You'll also be faced with a new moral question. It doesn't take much of a stretch to justify raising and slaughtering livestock for food, since we are dependent on organics for food. The concept of raising and slaughtering livestock for fuel has a filthy feel to it. Man might promote it as justifiable, but in general every action of a man is justifiable in his own eyes.

Empath said: The concept of raising and slaughtering livestock for fuel has a filthy feel to it.

As a 20 year strict vegetarian, I don't have any problem with this technology. It seems very unlikely to me that turkeys will ever be raised just for fuel (using the feed we feed turkeys for fuel would be way more likely). If there are parts of the turkey that non-vegetarians don't want (and I believe there are /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif )...then turning those un-wanted leftovers into fuel doens't bother me a bit. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I've no problem with it either, Ikendu. As long as it's waste from food production it seems quite reasonable. I've no way to even know if there's an advantage to making fuel from animal matter rather than plant. But if the facilities are created for doing so, once the capitol expenses are satisfied, I would suspect that the value of a turkey for food may be a lot less than the value of a turkey for fuel.
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Empath said: ...value of a turkey for food may be a lot less than the value of a turkey for fuel.

Have no fear of that. It typically takes 20 pounds of vegetable feed to create one pound of meat. It would be WAY more efficient just to change the 20 pounds of soy beans directly into fuel instead of feeding it to turkeys first. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I can just see the guy in the grumbling Camaro next to me... He leans out and shouts "Hey - just how many turkey power does that baby have under the hood?!"

or

"How many miles per turkey?"

No, that's just not right. Only good for a mild, sickening chuckle. And for that I apologize. A little. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

ikendu is correct that turkey as an energy source is WAY too inefficient to consider as primary. On top of that, the story sounds suspiciously like snake oil to my mind. The implication is that waste becomes NOTHING but usable product through this "proprietary" process. According to the article, the process is even self-powered by some of the product? Always a skeptic until I can see it for my own eyes. Be great if it works as billed, of course.

From the Discovery article, this is one part that concerns me:
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If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil.

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What this says to me is that there has been NO independent verification that this process works at ALL.

If any of you have a way to process dog waste, PM me with your address and I'll be happy to supply your needs. Well, the dogs will be supplying your needs. I just mail it for them.

Darell said: Be great if it works as billed, of course.

Well...it's unlikely that anyone would pony up $20 million to build the plant without some basis to think it would work. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif In any event, we should know shortly.

It's located in Missouri (just south of Iowa for those of you not familiar with my locale). I'm going to try to see if I can get a tour. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Although, I tried to get a tour of the new biodiesel plant in Ralston, Iowa. It's supposed to be "state of the art". No such luck...no tour, no photos.

Although...the biodiesel I buy comes from there, so I know it is a real manufacturing plant! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

BTW...here is neat movie of how biodiesel is made from Iowa State.

Part of the new food-for-oil program? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Empath said:
Should it become more profitable to make fuel from turkeys than food, then you'll find the food production taking a back seat in production.


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Turkey and other organic waste would never become the primary feedstock for thermal depolymerization, it would just be a good method of dealing with an otherwise messy byproduct of food production. There are waste products aplenty that would have much higher yield, nearly all plastic products, for instance, and remember, even organic byproducts need to be disposed of somehow - cracking them seems like the best method I've seen so far.

I've spent a bit of time looking into this, intrigued by the investment potential. The process is working on solid scientific principals and the engineering prototype pilot plants are meeting expected production yields. There don't seem to be any "show stoppers" floating about and confidence levels are very high.

The beauty of this process is that it is non-specific as to the source so long as it has a hydrocarbon base. "Cracking" is a straight forward process that functions at the molecular level. It's efficient, cost effective and from what I can gather, environmentally very friendly as well. It would almost seem too good to be true except that the pilot plants are externally supervised by potential customers and the plants themselves are in successful production. That's difficult to ignore or discount.

A full size plant should have a 6-7 year cost amortization when current waste disposal costs are factored in. This is simply put, spectacular!. No waste management system I have looked into has any of these attributes and all are environmentally harmful in more than one way. Thermal depolymerization looks good from every aspect.

Unless there is something that we have all missed, and there doesn't seem to be too much room for error, this process looks to be the "silver bullet" for waste management and, for the first time, allows cost effective "oil recycling" from organics. There are simply too many positives here for this process to be anything but a success if all of the test plants perform as expected.

I would watch this one carefully, it's the first of a whole new method of dealing with environment problems and potentially, it could be one of the next "big things". Lets hope it works out as expected.

Al

Cracking is just heating the input, passing it over a bed of catalist, and collecting and seperating the output--which may go on to another stage of cracking. Cracking is a general term for breaking bonds (which releases energy so these processes tend to provide their own power once they're going). By arranging different kinds of cracking steps in different patterns, you can pick off various parts of the input material where you want it.

What makes this make the most sense in the application that started this thread is that it's next door to a meat processing facility which has a ton of bio-waste that they would otherwise have to *pay* to get rid of. That can easily be $20 mil/year in costs. So, build the plant, get rid of the waste, *and* get fuel to run the plant back? Sounds like a good idea to me.

Ahh, ISU, my alma mater. Iowa, Iowa, uber alles.... Oh, darn, I knew I should have learned the fight song....

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ikendu said:
Well...it's unlikely that anyone would pony up $20 million to build the plant without some basis to think it would work. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif In any event, we should know shortly.

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Yeah, yeah. I didn't mean to sound like I'm raining on the parade. Sorry - I'm just a bit sour on life today.

Darell...I'm listening to the CARB hearings recordings (I had to get a new MP3 CD player that would play them /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ).

It's not hard to imagine why you are a little sour lately. Those CARB hearings would depress anyone. Virtually everyone supporting EVs... only to have the EV rug pulled away. I almost don't want to keep listening. I hope you don't lose heart! I am totally convinced of the value of EVs in our quest to get off of imported oil! People like you, actually doing it... will help inspire others. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Yeah - quite depressing. I'll be better tomorrow. I promise.

I walked in front of the camera a couple of times today to go pee. Did anybody see me? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Time to jump on the turkey offal and soy bean wagon I guess....

Sounds great. I wonder what percentage of the total oil used by the US can be replaced by this process, and how long would our 'fresh' garbage be able to supply this process? Would we be emptying, or 'mining' the landfills, how long would they last?
I must admit, to me it seems too good to be true. I always thought it would take more energy to release the energy in garbage than it would produce...can technology save us after all?

Well, considering it's almost impossible to convert 100% of any product into energy, I can see some sort of descrepency in how much trash is needed to yield quantitative amounts...

"If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water. "

When you pass away your family can have a service and a couple of hours later can fill up the diesel Jetta with "you" and also have a load of "you" fertilizer and water for the garden and can heat the house with "you".
Beats being cremated or buried. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Wolfen said: "...175-pound man fell in ...come out ...as 38 pounds of oil... .

I figure once Jay Leno (et al) hears of this... there will be all sort of comedic opportunities. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

After all, we've been hearing for years that the Mafia dominiates waste removal. Will there be lines at the local depolyermization plant with a big guy at the gate saying...sorry, we're set for democrats today...you've got to bring republicans back on odd numbered days... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ?

Or...not: "We're gonna take you for a ride." Instead: "We're gonna use you for a ride..." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ?

Instead of "Now, Johnny, clean your plate..." it will be "Johnny, don't be such a pig, we need those leftovers for our trip to Grandma's". /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jokes that begin..."a guy walks up to a depolymerization plant and says..." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ah...the lighter side of the energy equation. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif