Article

2004-06-07 -Short Attention Span Theater-

OPEC Can Go Stick Their Head Up A Dead Bearâs Bum

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Posted by tipper 2004-06-07 11:31:28 AM|| || Front Page|| [11129 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This company has yet to have anything substantive on its web site. Maybe they've done some small scale trials but there is no evidence they've done anything commercial.

Posted by mhw 2004-06-07 11:46:32 AM|| 2004-06-07 11:46:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 "S-oil-ent 10-30 is PEOPLE!!!"

Posted by BH 2004-06-07 11:54:09 AM|| 2004-06-07 11:54:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Actually they have done a pretty sizeable commercial plant with ConAgra that has capacity to output 500 barrels a day from Turkey guts. They say they're producing the oil at 15$ a barrel as opposed to the previous situation where ConAgra was paying a waste management company to haul away it's turkey guts.

Now that they've completed proof of concept they're in negotiations to build several more full scale plants. They estimate the larger scale plants will output 5000 barrels a day as opposed to 500.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 12:20:40 PM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-06-07 12:20:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 good info Damn_Proud

is there public info of a technical nature on this or is it just press reports and public affairs releases?

Posted by mhw 2004-06-07 1:32:22 PM|| 2004-06-07 1:32:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 mhw, basically this tech has been around for a long time. With enough pressure and heat pretty much everything we manufacture will break down into simpler carbon-hydrogen bonds plus some metals etc. Mostly carbon-hydrogen molecules though... which depending on configuration and size of the molecule makes up the range of fuels we use.

Historically the problem has been the inefficiency in the process because of the need to remove the water which in itself is an energy intensive task and then through removing the water you end up removing the heat in the water and tossing it away which is more lost energy.

These guys figured out that by instead of removing the water immediatly you can actually use it to distribute the heat in the waste more efficiently (thus quickening the process)... then instead of releasing the waste heat they recycle it back into the system (in the form of water vapor) and use it again for the next batch. The result is an 85% efficiency... in other words the plant uses 15% of the energy it produces from the waste material to run itself... the rest becomes oil.

These engineering improvements took a system that wasn't profitable and made it competitive. They estimate the larger scale plants that output 5000 barrels a day could reduce their costs to $8-10 a barrel.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 2:25:22 PM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-06-07 2:25:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 btw, here are the patents that go into some more of the technical details...

Link

Link

Link

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 2:34:33 PM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-06-07 2:34:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Calling Phil B.

Posted by Shipman 2004-06-07 2:40:17 PM|| 2004-06-07 2:40:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Only problem is scale. Just to make a dent the capacity will have to be 10 million barrels a day. The other side of the scale coin is if the supply of waste is sufficient and dense enough to provide for 10 million barrels a day

Posted by Chemist 2004-06-07 3:27:00 PM|| 2004-06-07 3:27:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Whoa... 10 million barrels a day is about half of our entire oil usage! That's a little more than a dent. If this technology could increase the oil supply by 10% it would have a huge stabalizing effect on the oil markets.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 3:29:11 PM|| 2004-06-07 3:29:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Eh the hangup that a lot of people seem don't seem to get around of is that they see the words "turkey guts" and automatically assume it can only be used for biowaste. Yet what about plastics and leftover computer hardware. Those would be richer in petroleum products as well as other minerals.

Anyhoo the only big problem I see is how do you transport enough of the garbage to a big enough plant? NIMBY always applies here guys and it often times tends to kills great ideas like this.

Posted by Valentine 2004-06-07 4:00:53 PM|| 2004-06-07 4:00:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I believe the idea behind these plants is that thee would be many smallish ones distributed around the country. Each would be placed near it's source material. For instance, the pilot plant is located next to the turkey rendering plant that supplies it. Similar scenarios would play out elsewhere.

When you consider that this thing can use old tires, sewage, plastic, pretty much anything with a carbon based chain, it is pretty bit news.

By the way, I believe that the current factory produces #4 heating oil: very easy to refine into other products.

Posted by Anonymous5099 2004-06-07 4:12:36 PM|| 2004-06-07 4:12:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 This is very unlikely to make a dent in our energy needs; as Steve DenBeste notes, unless you can do something on the order of 1% or more of our energy consumption, it's likely not to make a difference.

The real value of this is converting a negative (need to pay for waste disposal) into a positive (something they can sell). Even at 5,000 barrels a day -- or year -- that's something that the poultry rendering plant didn't have before, and it's a net savings to them. Useful and certainly worthwhile, but don't, er, bet the farm.

Posted by Steve White 2004-06-07 5:03:36 PM|| 2004-06-07 5:03:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Steve - you beat me to it. (Glad I read down all the comments before jumping in! :-p)

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2004-06-07 5:43:31 PM|| 2004-06-07 5:43:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 But Steve... if it's capable of turning a cost center into a profit center don't you think it will catch on across all industries and become fairly widespread? If that occurs then it will produce far more than 1% of our total energy consumption.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 5:52:39 PM|| 2004-06-07 5:52:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Actually the reason I said it needed to scale to 10 million barrels per day (mbd) is because by the time something like this becomes mainstream ( think 30 year capital depreciation cycles) in about 30-45 years the US oil demand will be up to 40-50 mbd so 10 mbd wil be 20-25% of oil consumption. This doesn't count non-oil energy needs.

Posted by Chemist 2004-06-07 7:37:44 PM|| 2004-06-07 7:37:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Steve White is right. SDB has explained at lenght why this doesn't scale and it is a solution to a waste disposal problem. As an end to end process I am wiling to bet that it consumes far more energy than it produces. People make the same mistake about fuel cells (and electric vehicles). They are a solution to a pollution problem, not an energy supply problem.

Posted by Phil B 2004-06-07 7:55:14 PM|| 2004-06-07 7:55:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 It's actually really simple to measure it's end to end energy efficiency. It's costing them $15 a barrel to produce with this plant. Obviously they could be lying about their cost, but assuming you're willing to take them at their word then you have your answer.

There is also the question of how are they determining the $15 dollar number. Are those their marginal costs or does it include depreciating their initial capex and over what time period? I'm going under the assumption that it includes capex depreciation being that this would be standard GAAP accounting. Once again if they're just giving their marginal costs then this is another issue.

Now assuming their GAAP cost per barrel is $15 with this smaller less efficient plant then by definition this does scale... extremely well.

That's why capitalism is so great, you can actually fing the answer to these questions because everything is measure the same way... dollars ;)

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-07 10:21:18 PM|| 2004-06-07 10:21:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 DPA you are confusing energy effiency and economic efficiency. I don't doubt the $15 cost quoted is correct, but it depends on the cost of the raw material. In this case it will be somewhere between free and they are paid to take it away. Lets face it, the market for turkey guts is limited. The supply is determined by the demand for the primary product of turkey raising. I don't know how much turkey guts the USA produces but I'm sure that even if all of it were converted int oil, it would have a minimal effect on the total energy supply. To go beyond that point you need to increase the supply of turkey guts. This will result in the value of turkey meat falling and the value of the oil produced would have to increase and you would quickly reach the point where the cost/value of the energy imput/produced becuase the primary component of the economics of the process.

So what this process is doing is increasing the economic effiency of the Turkey industry, but it says nothing about its energy efficiency.

Sorry not a great explanation but I'm (supposed to be) busy right now!

Posted by Phil B 2004-06-07 11:56:12 PM|| 2004-06-07 11:56:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 The market for specifically turkey guts is limited but the market for waste is huge. I think you're confusing what this process is. It takes any carbon based waste and converts it into oil. Animal (in this case turkey) guts were just the first application.

In actuality plastics and other forms of waste provide a higher yield.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2004-06-08 12:40:45 AM|| [http://brighterfuture.blogspot.com] 2004-06-08 12:40:45 AM|| Front Page Top

09:14 Anon1
09:08 .com
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06:23 Shipman
04:17 Howard Uk
04:13 .com
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03:31 Phil B
02:29 rex
01:54 Zenster
00:49 RMcLeod
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00:39 OldSpook
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