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AgroWaste Oil Plant Starts Production
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo, and others has a story about the first Waste-to-Oil plant going online, and selling the oil commercially. Using TCP (Thermal Conversion Process), the plant is producing 100-200 barrels of No. 4 oil a day, and has the capacity to produce up to 500 barrels per day. With the amount of agricultural waste in the U.S., and many more of these plants, we could possibly reduce our need for foreign oil."
Human activity might indeed be modestly affecting global temperatures. In fact it might be the reason for the extended inter-glacial period we're currently enjoying. A little global warming is a good thing, as it may stave off another catastrophic ice age. The earth left to it's own devices has other ideas that we would find most inhospitable.
This sounds like a solution to 2 problems: overflowing landfills, and soaring oil prices. The question, of course, comes to down to the almighty buck. The article (yes, I read it, I'm new here) states that it such plants are self-sufficient in terms of producing their own energy to operate, but fails to state their initial cost.
In these times of short-sighted administrations led by politicians unable to see the big picture beyond getting reeleced in 4 years, how likely is this to be implemented en-masse in municipalities such as Toronto, for example, where it could be used to curb (apparently in an eco-friendly manner, while providing needed petroleum) exports of waste to Michigan?
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
In Victoria, Australia, one of the power companies is planning to do a similar thing with coal, except they're going to churn out enough of it to supply most of the local market. If it works, they're going to generate cheap, low-sulfur (and thus low-emission) diesel, run a whopping great electricity plant from the byproducts, and all the CO2 from the generation will be stuffed underground for a very long time. While it's not ideal, it's a heck of a lot better than the current situation (burn the coal straight into the atmosphere and import oil from overseas).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Environmental laws that force refineries to produce the "boutique" blends the parent mentions are a step in the right direction.
What are some of the better resources (ie. web)available out there where I can find more information?
Considering how much better air quality in LA has become (I should know, I live here too) perhaps the rest of the nation should adopt the same boutique blend.
That way, all refineries would be making the same stuff and the regional demand issues could go away. Refineries can be built. They're easier to build in TX than in CA, true, but they can be built.
Of course, nobody is going to reduce their gas consumption as an act of philanthropy. Gas consumption will go down as soon as the price of gas is high enough to pick something else.
Some have theorized that no new refineries have been built because they take some time(15 years I think?) to break even, and that oil companies know they don't have 15 years worth of oil that is easily accessible. Thus, why bother making refineries that will never operate long enough to be profitable?
What's scary is that if you read between the lines and look closely, most of the OPEC nations are pumping oil at their "full capacity" levels- in other words, we're getting to be rather tapped out.
We'll find other ways of getting around, but what concerns me more is plastic- virtually everything we make needs something plastic, and guess where plastic comes from? That and as we get more and more desperate for oil, it'll be harder to fight off those who want to drill in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, etc.
Please help metamoderate.
There are a lot more Escalades than Blackhawks.
An Escalade on the highway will burn 1 gallon per 16 miles. Assuming highway cruise speed of 75, we're talking about 5 gallons per hour, or roughly $10 per hour (at the national average).
So we need 40 Escalades to match one Blackhawk.
36,114 Escalades were sold in 2002, according to GM. 35,621 in 2003. So in just 2 years, we have a little over 70,000 Escalades on the streets; this is equivalent to about 1750 Blackhawks. Though exact numbers are hard to find, there appear to be about 2000-2500 Blackhawks in the US Armed Forces.
Even assuming we run the Blackhawks as much as the Escalades, *one model* of SUV counterbalances the entire US military stock of Blackhawks.
Enough research for you?
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
We use about 19.7 million barrels of oil a day. Interestingly, thats only an increase on 2 million barrels a day since 1973. Given our massive infrastructure growth in that time, I'd say our usage is actually very controlled.
World Oil Consumption
Thanks Google
Increased auto emissions start this year and take effect for all vehicles including SUVS for the first time by 2007 (2009 for the HUGE SUVS). There are going to be a lot of SUVs that are going to be hard pressed to meet these new regulations. This is one of the biggest clean air regulations to ever be put into place. About an 85% reduction in non-CO2 emissions. It's equivalent to around 150 million cars being removed from the road once these new cars get out there. It's especially great for everyone in CA since it means that everyone will use the same clean gas as us, lowering our price since cheap gas from OR will become a possibility driving down in state production. Best of all is the reclassification of really big SUVs are consumer vehicles (the H2 isn't right now). This means they'll get the gas guzzler take and their poor MPG will count against their parent companies.
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
I live in the UK and petrol / diesel prices are over $6 per gallon. In light of this, and the fact that petrol consumption is the cause of all kinds of environmental devastation (my girlfriend comes from Northern Spain, recently wrecked by the Prestige spill) and war, I have decided to make my own diesel fuel from waste vegetable oil.
Biodiesel and associated technologies can only ever be a part of truly sustainable glabal energy policy, but it has a large part to play in these early stages as it uses existing technology.
Not many people know that the original diesel engine ran on peanut oil!
I bought a cheap diesel car and built an oil refinery from scrap metal in my shed. I have made friends from my friendly, local, Kurdish kebab seller and I am well on the way to fuel independence.
Check out my project at:
Dan's biodiesel
Peace and grease!
Your comment is funny, but one of the advantages of this process is that it can convert any organic waste (burned pizzas, mc donalds leftovers etc), not just turkey-guts. And since US wastes a lot of food daily, I think we could comfortably be supplying all the "fuel" for these plants.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.