To all of my scientific friends here at AP:

Please check out this site and tell me if it's credible. Sounds to me like another "too good to be true" but would really like your input as I have little (if any) knowledge on this subject. Thanks Big Time!

http://www.changingworldtech.com/

I apologize if this is not in the correct forum, but if there's anything to this, it's news to me!

'The Carthage, Missouri, plant is currently producing 100-200 barrels of oil per day utilizing by-products from an adjacent turkey processing facility...

...TCP [thermal conversion process] succeeds in breaking down long chains of organic polymers into their smallest units and reforming them into new combinations to produce clean solid, liquid and gaseous alternative fuels and specialty chemicals...

...The process entails five steps:

Pulping and slurrying the organic feed with water.

Heating the slurry under pressure to the desired temperature.

Flashing the slurry to a lower pressure to separate the mixture.

Heating the slurry again (coking) to drive off water and produce light hydrocarbons.

Separating the end products.'

It says that TCP 'generates its own energy to power the plant, and uses the steam naturally created by the process to heat incoming feedstock'. That sounds dubious - suggesting perpetual motion. The question might be - how much energy do they use to create the "oil" from the waste? And where does that energy come from?

Someone on the radio the other day was talking about ethanol - an organic oil substitute produced from corn. It's not the fuel of the future, apparently. The process of growing and producing this fuel uses more real (rock) oil than it can substitute for.

Thanks, NNN -- so in layman's terms, it might require more energy for this process than what the end result might yield?

It doesn't need to be "perpetual energy" to fit their description. The process has two energy inputs - the energy contained in the waste and the energy they need to put into the waste to convert it to a usable fuel. If it takes less energy than is contained in the waste to convert the waste into useable fuel, it can "power itself" in that it needs no fuel except the waste itself.

Yes, it is possible in the sense that you can produce a petroleum-like fuel from waste. Given today's technology and today's demand, it certainly can't replace oil. With improved technology, it may be a viable supplement. The same basic process can be used on other things - for example, to turn the woody biomass that needs to be cleared from the forest floor to prevent forest fires into fuel (my brother worked on that from a policy end this summer [the question of whether or not clearing the underbrush is really a good thing is another matter)). see this article for more info

As for ethanol, there's disagreement over how efficient the process is. Only one study I know of has claimed it results in a net loss of energy, all others have shown a net gain. It certainly needs improvement. See this thread for more on that.

On a related topic, See this article on biodiesel



What it comes down to is:

all these processes are generally (though not universally) agreed to result in a net energy gain.

new technology is needed if the gain is to be increased.

biodiesel seems to be the only one of these that is being used in significant quantities.

Although they are pricey, that becomes less of a factor as oil prices shoot upwards.

Some while back people in Wales were driving around in cars running on fuel made from cooking oil. The oil was coming from local fish and chip shops, so was itself being recycled.

Unfortunately a whole load of spoilsports from the Revenue had them stopped for driving vehicles , the fuel of which had not been declared for duty. Once the duty was payable the whole scheme was unattractive.The tax element in petrol and diesel prices is about 75%. Last anyone heard the police in Wales were experimenting with biodiesel, but whether it was sourced, as raw material, from the police canteen or the local chippy was not made clear

Thanks, guys. So I guess that it would be premature to buy stock in Changing World Technologies -- just joking -- they are still a private company to begin with.
Gonna throw another question out -- if I can.
What about the future of methane gas? Could this be a promising alternative fuel? Sorry if this has been covered before.

At the moment, methane is a fossil fuel (natural gas is mostly methane). It's possible to get it from landfill or sewage gases, but I don't know the economic practicality of those sources.

I guess the guy I heard on the radio was from a (conventional) oil company.

The article Kelleygirl links us to, about the energy-from-turkey-waste project, says that 'TCP is more than 80% energy efficient.' What might that mean?

80% of the energy potential of the waste is made usable? The process shows a net gain in energy (originating from the sun via whatever turkeys eat, I suppose) but the process itself loses about 20% of that energy gained (as heat)?

Or does it mean that the energy recovered is 80% of the energy needed to do all that heating and compressing?

Also heard on the radio, that a school district takes chicken carcasses and is able to obtain enough "oil" out of them to run their school buses. I realize that this is on a very small scale but it is an attempt at alternative resources of fuel.

Could someone answer NNN's last questions? I would like to know these answer also and thanks.

Thew claim on the web site is that 80% of the available energy makes it into the fuel. That means that 20% either goes back into the process or is lost by inefficiency. I don't know how true that is, but it's what the web site claims.