Changing World Technologies

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I asked about these guys over in the science forum here, I got some replies about them being in Discover etc. Also about the EPA checking them out.

How easy is it to get BS into Discover? How easy is it to get a scam opperation past the EPA?

In short, is this technology really, really, really for real? If so, perhaps many more plants based on this technology will be made soon; with how oil prices are now?

 

[jmercer]

I have no clue if it's real or not, but it seems bizarre to me. I still can't see how that 'slurry' changes into hydrocarbon chains.

Fascinating.

 

[Jon the Geek]

As far as I've been able to tell, it's for real. While at first it seems impossible (burning oil produces energy, so how can you produce oil without putting in a ton of energy?), but it works out if you look at the overall system. For example, one of their pilot plants uses turkey guts. You could get energy from burning turkey guts, but it's not a fuel that most of our machines can use as-is. So, they use that energy to make oil (and related long hydrocarbon chains), which *can* be used in more applications. It's probably not the most efficient way to harness the energy in turkey guts, but it's what we're more setup to use.

 

[luchog]

It's not BS.

The "turkey guts" plant is not a pilot; but an actual (small-scale)commercial-scale operation (the pilot plant used a different feedstock, iirc).

It has also been proven using plastic feedstocks as well.

It does require energy to start and maintain. However, since the majority of the energy available in the organic feedstocks is solar (either directly from plant waste, or from animals feeding on plants); the energy put into extraction/refining is far lower than that obtained. The process produces a small amount of natural gas along with the petrol; but not in commercially viable quantities, so it's used to fuel the continued process.

There are plenty of websites out there with info on the technology; but this one is the company that is running the current commercial plant with ConAgra Foods.
Changing World Technologies

 

[Soapy Sam]

Oh it's real enough.

I was just wondering as I read the item, what Greenpeace would have to say about $15 a barrel oil.

Interestingly, nobody is saying the energy companies will buy the technology and suppress it. In fact I understand several oil companies are investing in similar technology, notably BP and Shell. Oil is oil. And energy is energy.

My doubt simply is that the numbers add up. For a start, you only use offal as landfill if you can't sell it for anything else. If someone wants to buy it, the price of turkey guts goes up...

 

[luchog]

Oh it's real enough.

I was just wondering as I read the item, what Greenpeace would have to say about $15 a barrel oil.

Interestingly, nobody is saying the energy companies will buy the technology and suppress it. In fact I understand several oil companies are investing in similar technology, notably BP and Shell. Oil is oil. And energy is energy.

My doubt simply is that the numbers add up. For a start, you only use offal as landfill if you can't sell it for anything else. If someone wants to buy it, the price of turkey guts goes up...

Offal is far from the only useful feedstock. Any organic will work with the process; as will most plastics (being long-chain hydrocarbons). Offal from slaughterhouse operations is simply the first (and probably easiest) waste stream feedstock to set up. Other, less useful agriculture waste is a strong possibility, as is maunufacturing/packaging plastic wastes. It is technically possible; though probably not economical, to mine landfills for feedstock. But in any case, a standard municipal waste stream, minus metals and construction/demolition rubble, would be perfectly adequate.

 

[casebro]

Plenty of room for doubts here:

Latest I had heard, they have a problem with too much chlorine in the output. Maybe that depends on the input, but critters do have cloride (sodium chloride= salt), while oil does NOT. Burning chlorine probably makes all kind of nasties- hydrochloric acid, chorinated hydrocarbons like PCBs, etc.

The company was founded by a sales/finance expert.

The company is an LLC, a disposable way to organise a company.

I'm not sure there is a great difference between molecular depolymerisation and modern 'cracking plant' refineries. They both use heat and catylisation to break down and reform long chain molecules. If it was doable, wouldn't Shell be doing it?

Turkey guts have to be at least 50% water, yet the figures given seem way too efficient for that. A little exaggeration? or a lot?

If guts have so much energy, Wouldn't it be more efficient to just dry and burn the guts at a power plant? Probably smell like roasting turkey with dressing?

The site linked above is 2 years old. What's the current situation? current efficiency?

Some fertilizer is made from offal, some from petroleum. Is there really surplus offal? or is it a regional surplus thing?

 

[Jon the Geek]

Plenty of room for doubts here:

Indeed, but I actually have answers to a few of these

Latest I had heard, they have a problem with too much chlorine in the output. Maybe that depends on the input, but critters do have cloride (sodium chloride= salt), while oil does NOT. Burning chlorine probably makes all kind of nasties- hydrochloric acid, chorinated hydrocarbons like PCBs, etc.

Too much chlorine would definitely make for nastiness. I hadn't heard this part.

I'm not sure there is a great difference between molecular depolymerisation and modern 'cracking plant' refineries. They both use heat and catylisation to break down and reform long chain molecules. If it was doable, wouldn't Shell be doing it?

There's a difference. I don't know the details of the process on a mechanistic level, but I know TDP (thermal depolymerization, what CWT calls the process) uses a different process to make long-chain hydrocarbons than previous, supposedly less efficient processes.

Turkey guts have to be at least 50% water, yet the figures given seem way too efficient for that. A little exaggeration? or a lot?

If guts have so much energy, Wouldn't it be more efficient to just dry and burn the guts at a power plant? Probably smell like roasting turkey with dressing?

That'd be great if we all drove electric cars, but we don't. This is a way to make usable energy out of offal. Like I said, it's doubtful that it's anywhere near the most efficient use.

The site linked above is 2 years old. What's the current situation? current efficiency?

That's been a disturbing part of all this. I heard that the turkey guts plant opened, but I haven't heard any more updates, and I look into this from time to time to see if they're getting anywhere. So far, as far as I've seen, there hasn't been much (if any) new news.

Some fertilizer is made from offal, some from petroleum. Is there really surplus offal? or is it a regional surplus thing?

As far as I know, there's surplus offal. To my knowledge, the guts they use in their plant would otherwise be burned (not for any sort of easily usable energy) and/or landfilled.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Too much chlorine would definitely make for nastiness. I hadn't heard this part.

I'm not the smartest person on Earth, but what's wrong with using giant centrifuges to make the oil(a liquid) and chlorine(a toxic, green gas) separate into different layers? The handy dandy chlorine can be sold to be used in pools or trench warfare.

 

[Jon the Geek]

I'm not the smartest person on Earth, but what's wrong with using giant centrifuges to make the oil(a liquid) and chlorine(a toxic, green gas) separate into different layers? The handy dandy chlorine can be sold to be used in pools or trench warfare.

I assume it isn't chlorine gas, but rather chlorinated long-chain hydrocarbons (ie, the chlorine atoms attach to the hydrocarbons). At that point, it ain't easy to get 'em off without, well, burning it... which would defeat the purpose

 

[casebro]

I'm not the smartest person on Earth, but what's wrong with using giant centrifuges to make the oil(a liquid) and chlorine(a toxic, green gas) separate into different layers? The handy dandy chlorine can be sold to be used in pools or trench warfare.

Chemically, the chlorine is not a free gas, it is locked into a molecule of oil. Just like in table salt, sodium chloride. Otherwise, no centrifuge needed, it would just float away. It's probably a chlorinated hydrocarbon already.

As for recycling computers, wires have Teflon insulation, tetra-chloro-flouro- methane?, chlorine and flourine too with the methane.

Not to say they haven't overcome some of these problems. It's just that recycling is not so pure and simple of a process is it?

I'd think that conversion of plant matter like cellulose would be more pure, carbohydrates to hydrocarbons. Crude oil has all kinds of impurities, cracking plants must use up some carbohydrates already.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

That's been a disturbing part of all this. I heard that the turkey guts plant opened, but I haven't heard any more updates, and I look into this from time to time to see if they're getting anywhere. So far, as far as I've seen, there hasn't been much (if any) new news.

Does that mean it's a con, or just nothing to report? Supposedly the plant makes 300 barrels of oil per day and creates a bad smell. I think it's next to impossible to sneak 300 barrels of oil into a place per day to make it look like it's producing oil. I'd sure be nice to know for sure about them though...

 

[luchog]

That's been a disturbing part of all this. I heard that the turkey guts plant opened, but I haven't heard any more updates, and I look into this from time to time to see if they're getting anywhere. So far, as far as I've seen, there hasn't been much (if any) new news.

I can't seem to find the article, but I remember reading some small little blurb about it last year. Something about a slight modification of the processes and emissions control because of the smell.

A quick google turned up this post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1477281/posts
It contains several links and sources for articles from 2004 and 2005 on the Carthage, MO ConAgra-partnered plant; both of which are clearly still in operation. Some of them require registration, but BugMeNot may be able to help there.

And according to the info there, it's turning out 400 barrels of light crude (as good or better quality than the best fossil sources iirc) per day.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

And according to the info there, it's turning out 400 barrels of light crude (as good or better quality than the best fossil sources iirc) per day.

I want a mini version for myself.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Incidentally, oil frequently containsnumerous contaminants which must be removed. Gases like H2S, SO2, CO2 are removed by standard gas fractionation techniques.
As the article says, refinery cracking techniques involve removal of water from oil. The remaining hydrocarbons are then fractionated (basically distilled.) Other contaminants may be removed at different points in the process.

The primary difference here seems to involve keeping water (and presumably other volatiles IN, to (accelerate) I won't say "catalyse" the breakdown.

Problem is, if toxic materials are in there, toxic material will emerge, some of it corrosive (chlorine is an example. )
There are ways to treat such materials, but that adds cost unless the resultant product is also saleable.

 

[Hellbound]

Regarding waste streams and such, my understanding is that the process can be used on human waste and sewage, aswell. Since te water is seperated in the end stages, there was speculation about using it to replace water treatment plants, providing both clean water and a useable by-product (oil).

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I wonder if these kinds of plants will start popping up all over the place within a few years, with oil prices the way they are?
There are lakes near where I live that are overgrown with this algae, plant, whatever stuff. It's bad. What rabbits and cane toads are to Australia, times those by many times and you have a rough idea. It's like a jungle just a few feet below the surface! Dredge this crap up and turn it into oil, let it regrow and do it again and again and again...

 

[Soapy Sam]

Diminishing returns.
Catalytic cracking plants (refineries) have a lot of downtime for preventive maintenance. Output is maintained by duplicating parts of the plant- one column is down for maintenance, another is processing. When demand goes up, pressure is applied to cut maintenance and keep the whole operation running at capacity.
You don't need genius to see this will end in tears.
I expect this sort of process will be subject to similar constraints. In an experimental stage, shutdowns are not a problem. Once it's run as a business, they are. That's not an engineering problem, it's an accounting one. Doubling large parts of the plant halfs your profit, unless you raise prices. Also, right now you may be able to charge people at both ends- ie "Pay us to remove your toxic waste. We will process it and sell someone else the product." After a while, the waste suppliers may decide to start charging for what is , after all, now a resource. At that poibnt, the economics change.

 

[Matabiri]

I was just wondering as I read the item, what Greenpeace would have to say about $15 a barrel oil.

What would they say? The carbon in this process is part of the surface carbon cycle, rather than the sequestered carbon in buried oil. That is, using it as a fuel would not increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere, because the carbon would be taken up elsewhere to be turned back into oil.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Diminishing returns.
Catalytic cracking plants (refineries) have a lot of downtime for preventive maintenance. Output is maintained by duplicating parts of the plant- one column is down for maintenance, another is processing. When demand goes up, pressure is applied to cut maintenance and keep the whole operation running at capacity.
You don't need genius to see this will end in tears.
I expect this sort of process will be subject to similar constraints. In an experimental stage, shutdowns are not a problem. Once it's run as a business, they are. That's not an engineering problem, it's an accounting one. Doubling large parts of the plant halfs your profit, unless you raise prices. Also, right now you may be able to charge people at both ends- ie "Pay us to remove your toxic waste. We will process it and sell someone else the product." After a while, the waste suppliers may decide to start charging for what is , after all, now a resource. At that poibnt, the economics change.

Then they'll just have do deal with lower profits won't they? They'll still be filthy rich.

As to the waste suppliers charging for their waste, how's this going to help them earn money? If they charge for their waste that will only make the price of the oil they need go up. They don't earn and keep more money.