Slashdot Mirror
AgroWaste to Oil a Growing Market
EvilTwinSkippy writes "Last May Slashdot covered the story of Changing World Tech's opening of a plant that converts agricultural waste to oil. Fortune magazine has picked up the story, and followed up on their success. Apparently the turkey guts are not as profitable to recycle as hoped, the company paying $30-$40/ton for animal offal. They are producing diesel fuel at $80/barrel (compared to $50/barrel for petroleum derived diesel). However, the plant has been successful enough to spawn ventures in Europe and the U.S. A pilot plant in Philadelphia has successfully used the process to safely break down and extract oil from sewage, medical waste, electronics, even leftovers from petroleum refining. The solids are metal, pure carbon, and fertilizer. And aside from gas and oil, the only other thing the system produces otherwise is sterile water."
Does that mean it can't reproduce?
at least we know there will be a cap of $80 usd for the barrel of oil.
Well I have the perfect marketing slogan for this! We can call it STOOL FUEL, Straight from people's butts into your engines.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
It would be a great idea if it was cheaper. Maybe other natural ingredients will help bring the price down.
Given that there is legitimate concern that we will soon reach -- and maybe already have -- peak oil production, the $80/bbl price may be competitive before too long.
The real problem is that there just aren't enough turkey guts in the world to replace crude oil, and the grain that the turkeys are fed is produced by an agricultural industry that is totally dependent on petroleum-derived fertilizers and pesticides.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I don't know about cases like medical waste or electronics, but when it's using turkey guts or other agricultural waste as a feedstock, it is able to run itself off the natural gas produced, leaving crude oil as an energy-producing product.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
No, I wrote a report on this company last year for a college assignment. This process consumes less energy than it produces, but not enough to be economical yet. Really the only benifit from it now is disposal of organic waste as the oil produced isnt cost effective for the market yet.
Wouldn't it be truly ironic if the medical waste was liposuction fat (think Fight Club)? Then, the clinical obesity afflicting one in three Americans would itself be powering the automobiles that are, in part, responsible for the obesity.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I think it's important that we research these alternatives now. There are certain uses for petroleum that we can't reproduce via other means -- powering our cars and homes isn't one of them.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
A)Do they deliver?
B)What's Darl McBride's address again?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
There are lost of other things I would think that are more viable that are hard to get rid of. I'm sure slaughterhouses would be glad to have a way to get rid of all the shit that the animals produce. Any one remember the CNN story about the giant flaming shitheap in Nebraska?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/28/cow.fire.ap/
"feeding animals to animals remains standard practice in the U.S"
Really stupid. If politicians weren't in the pocket of industry, this would be outlawed. Make that OUTLAWED! Then, maybe the slaughterhouses would be _paying_ to have the offal disposed of - and not by dumping it anywhere they own a piece of land, either.
Voila! Suddenly the product becomes directly competitive with petroleum.
You do not understand the laws of Thermodynamics. The grandparent was asking about the refinement process, not the entire system from conception of the turkey, to its growth, to when it got whacked, and its guts and crap were shipped.
By the later definition, nothing is economical, and we shouldn't even bother getting up in the morning.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
No process can be 100% (or more) efficient -- the CWT process is about 80%-85% efficient. That means that the remaining energy is turned to waste, so it obviously produces less energy at the end than when it started.
However, when looking at usable energy, the system is highly efficient. Most of the energy in the CWT comes from the energy stored in the "feedstock" (turkey guts, etc.). This is energy that would normally be slowly released as waste energy as the feedstocks decomposed. instead, this process turns that energy into useful products, primarily diesel fuel. Removing the energy from the feedstock, the process produces about 4-5 times more usable energy than it uses.
It's PEOPLE! Soylent Diesel is PEOPLE!!!!!
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
One of my mothers friends is starting a plant that converts tires into Oil. The process takes old tires and removes the oil from them, basically oil from the rubber and oil they pick up from driving on the road. I forget if it is a qt per tire or something goofy like that.
They are out there, we need to find them.
the giant flaming shitheap IS Nebraska....
There, better.
(God as my witness, I honestly thought turkeys could fly.)
The problem with the process, as I read the article, is that while thermal depolymerization may scale for any one particular type of waste, no single TD process works as well for all types of waste.
If you're already running a turkey plant, it may be economical to spend $1M to render down turkey guts into $1.1M worth of oil. (Spend time in phase 1 than in phase 2.)
If you're already running a tire dump, it may be economical to spend $1M for the same plant, with the dials set differently, to render used automobile tyres into $1.1M worth of oil. (Spend more time in phase 2 than phase 1.)
The problem is that the process isn't continuous and efficient for all input waste types, such that not worth spending $100M for a really big plant to render 3000 incoming truckloads of raw organic matter into $110M worth of oil, because you can't. You have to separate the truckloads of "stuff with carbon in it" into piles of cow/pig/turkey bones, human bits from hospitals, raw sewage, chickenshit, pigshit, spammer, plastic bottles, used tires, and run different processes to get the most valuable materials out of each of the three waste streams.
Neat idea for small and medium businesses with a uniform waste stream. Not gonna change the world.
And to make things even better, the energy the process requires comes from natural gas produced in the later stages of the thermal depolymerization process. The only energy a TDP plant needs is an initial shot of natural gas to get things going, and an electical supply for such things as controlling valves and running sensors.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
With the volatility of crude oil the way it is (heck, it's gone up over 5% today!) for no logical reason (they cite "unseasonably cold weather in the northeast US and Britain" - winter is always cold, and our reserves are higher than they were last year - go figure), any other alternatives that don't require a huge infrastructure change are welcome. Producing "petroleum" from waste is potentially a great way to reduce the volatility of crude oil.
It does nothing, though, to address the issues of using a carbon-based energy currency and the CO2 byproducts from that. It's definitely a novel idea, and the sooner we develop alternatives the better (it's a whole lot more difficult to develop alternatives when your reserves are depleted due to increased periodic costs - i.e., higher cost for crude oil).
* As my physics prof put it: "The first law says the best you can do is break even, and the second law says you can't even come close."
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
80$ a barrell vs 50$ a barell may SEEM to be a failure, but it is actualy an incredible accomplishment that will become increasingly viable in short order.
I've done some research on this topic and found out that californias agricultural waste which is mostly funneled down into a southern californian dessert lake area could supply enough fuel to satiate the US oil supply.
There is enough un-inhabitable land area in southern california to process all of this waste and thus fully liberate the US from foriegn oil, not to mention create a replenshible power supply compatible with our current prevelant technology (gas based power).
The greatest contorl over per barell pricing is from the supply made available from oil producing states greatly controlled by OPEC. As world consumption increases and known stock piles decrease and cease over the next 30 to 50 years the price per barrell will continualy rise. And will certainly exceed 80$ a barell probably within the next five to ten years.
The only reason oil is at 50$ per barell is due to it's massive scale, if waste based oils had even a hundreth of the scale that our current oil industry uses, or even a thousandth of the money, industry and investment it does, we would probably see prices drop well below the 50$ mark.
And this is speaking of the technology in it's current form. Though it may have some initial ineffeciences which have made the cost 80$ a barrell, cost saving measures through natural refinment of the processing of waste will undoubtably greatly improve the procedure within the next few years and continue.
I would say that 80$ a barrell is an astounding accomplishment which given the finite and defintie bounds of drill based oil will rapdily become an extremly attractive alternative fuel source.
Im surprised at the pesimisitc tone from slashdot. I also speculate that in the next ten years or so we shall see the major players seek control over this new market to sell oil to the world market as their drill based supply dwindles.
--VISION
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
BioDesiel is the fuel of the (achievable) future, IMHO. Untill we can get Fuel Cells at reasonable prices or batteries get much better power density (or portable nuclear reactors are invented and safe) then getting peopole over to BioDesiel (which conventional Desiel engines can be easily modified to handle) is the solution.
Plus, the exhaust smells like french fries so McDonald's should be pushing this because it will increase demand for their product. McDonald's: Bringing you the green future through fast food cravings ;)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Actually, it does address the fact that there's CO2 byproducts: It's recycled carbon. The problem with using petroleum pumped up from the depths was that this was carbon that was locked up. If we grow plants, turn them into oil, and then burn them, the net change in CO2 is zero.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
The $80 per barrel number is misleading. When considering large markets, shipping oil all over the place from a root source at $80/barrel is not economically feasible. The key here is that this oil doesn't have to compete in that market. In eastern Washington State, a number of rendering plants are already doing this themselves. They don't have to ship the animal waste anywhere, so they aren't paying for it, and the oil they get it *vastly* cheaper than the diesel at the pump for their distribution. One plant I've seen also provides some electricity through a diesel generator running fuel they produce. I don't really know about the math here, but let's say you're saving $10 per barrel by not having to buy the "offal." Now you're at $70. How much overhead is put on a $50 barrel of diesel before it comes to the pump? Right now, we're seeing spot prices at $2.30 - multiplied by 55 gallons (per barrel, correct me if I'm wrong) - you get over $125. Since you're at the point of purchase already, as long as your equipment costs are less than $55/barrel, you're saving money over filling your trucks at the pump.
Not to mention that a process can waste far more energy than goes into it and still be viable - for example, the liquifaction of coal during WWII which partly powered the Nazi war machine. The only important thing is whether you can put into your car (or tank or whatever) the end product, when you couldn't the input products.
:) ) into oil for 80$ per barrel pretty much sets that as an upper limit on costs. And as tech advances, that price per barrel will drop.
I think that this process has the following applications:
1) Disposal of waste that costs more than 30$ per barrel to dispose of as-is.
2) Creation of oil in remote locations from waste - e.g., bringing plane flights of petroleum to a remote village in the canadian or siberian wilderness might make it cost more than 80$/barrel. The same would hold true on an even greater scale with antarctic coal.
3) Ensuring that there never will be an overly dramatic "oil shock" - while it wasn't a realistic prospect anyways, the ability to turn essentially anything organic (even people - soylent diesel, anyone?
4) Being a "clean fuel" source. Since all of the carbon involved was already in the system, there's no net increase in CO2.
Any other benefits?
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Personally I'm surprised we havn't seen any federal grants here yet, if the federal government is spending billions to insure the worlds oil suppy, it seems as they would provide some grants to such an operations. Easily bringing the cost to the producers under $50 dollars a barrel. Who here is up for writing their congresscritters!
High natural gas prices have driven some users to petroleum fuels, so the demand for fertilizer is increasing petroleum demand even if it isn't a direct petroleum product.
If their manufacture involves petrochemicals and their use increases the demand for oil, you might as well call them petroleum-derived.Sustainability and energy independence essay
They claim that the methane produced from their process produces all the energy to drive their distillation process, and I think that's perpetual motion machine junk science.
Perpetual Motion? I don't think you know what that means. They are adding TONS of turkey offal. That is where the energy is coming from. It isn't perpetual motion if you are constantly adding things (like, um, turkey offal).
Doesn't this process consume more energy than it produces?
Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Looks like they are getting more energy out of the recycling process than they're putting into it, which is a plus. OTOH, everything they're recycling ultimately took a lot of oil to produce, and they're not able to turn most of that back into oil.
I mean, think about it with just the turkeys. In order to raise a bunch of turkeys, it takes oil to get oil out of the ground. Then it takes oil to transport the oil to the United States. Then it takes oil to refine that oil into gas or other fuel. Then it takes oil to transport that fuel to its destination. Then the fuel is used in a tractor - which took a ton of oil to make - to grow the grain that the turkeys are fed. Oh, and the crops are fertilized with oil-derived fertilizers, so there's more oil dumped in the system. The grain is then harvested, consuming more fuel, processed and transported to where the turkeys are being raised. It took oil to build the factory farm where the turkeys are being raised, and they're fed a steady stream of pharmaceuticals that were made from and transported by oil. The turkeys are then slaughtered (they may be transported first, using oil), processed and typically frozen. They're then transported, in giant oil-gulping refrigerated trucks, wrapped in oil (plastic), to the local Albertsons. There, suburban housewives show up in their oil-guzzling SUV's to lug the birds home.
Now, even if you were able to convert all of the unused bits of the turkeys and their waste to oil or some other fuel at 100% efficiency, you still would only produce a fraction of the oil it took to raise those turkeys in the first place. That leaves a tremendous energy gap to be addressed, and we don't have any technology in place or on the horizon capable of filling that void. (Please, don't say "nuclear" anybody. If we tried to replace our petroleum consumption with nuclear, we'd rapidly run out of uranium and be left with a lot of dead nuclear plants. And South Africa, that bastion of political and social stability, has the world's largest reserves of uranium. We'd just be trading our problems in the Middle East for a whole new set of problems.)
Technologies like this waste-to-oil recycling will help to boost overall energy efficiency a teeny little bit, but they won't come close to providing a substitute for our colossal consumption of petroleum. Remember too, these technologies take oil to develop and construct, and that oil is about to become far more expensive, making these technologies less and less efficient as a result. Unfortunately, global demand continues to skyrocket, while global supply may well have peaked (thanks to political instability, if nothing else). This does not bode well for our oil-based civilization.
Sort of but not really.
Mad cow disease is caused by cows eating COWS (or sheep). The US has banned canabilistic feed. But remember that most diseases are species specific and by feeding turkeys to cows and cows to turkeys you prevent the spread of disease as efectivly as turning them into oil.
But remember that by doing this you will make the cost of feed go up which will make the cost of meat go up...
There are two cost factors that are really afffecting them. Remedying either or both of them could turn the tide.
The first is their exclusion from a tax break for biodiesel. This looks like a gross oversight which they may be able to get corrected. The article mentions this as being equivalent to a $1/gal. reduction in production costs, which would be significant.
The second is the cost of raw materials. Animal wastes are accounting for $15 to $20 per barrel. If they can source a raw material that is either free or they can charge to process, half or more of their cost difference vs. traditional diesel will be removed. The other option would be to remove the current primary market for animal byproducts, use in animal feed. This increases the viability in Europe.
If they could get both of those changes enacted, their cost per barrel could be near zero, certainly competitive with traditional sources.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
It's a useful minor energy source, but primarily it's good for converting a stinky, unpleasant, difficult to handle waste stream into something useful. There's simply not enough food waste to supply the system. Growing targeted crops would be absurdly inefficient. At best photosynthesis is 2.5% efficient, compared to 12% for commercially available solar panels. Take system inefficiencies in the stream from sunlight to depolymerizable crop and there isn't enough arable land on earth to meet our energy demands.
There's a basic energy balance concept that seems to escape most supposedly intelligent pundits on this issue. It's the sort of thing you're supposed to learn in 7th grade with rate problems: the world is a closed system, with energy in and energy out. Energy in comes from the sun, energy out is radiated heat. Over time there has been very slightly more energy in than out, which is stored as fossil fuels.
Ignoring the consequences of liberating all the CO2 ever captured in the history of the world over the next century, there's neither enough fossil fuel to last nor enough arable land to build an economy around a sustainable biofuel stream.
But Solar is trivial. It easily answers the world's energy needs at an entirely manageable cost.
A 16kWh/day (5.8E3 kWh/y) complete grid tie system costs $15k (12% efficient BP panels). 2E10 of these systems would power the whole world (volume discount?) which would cost $3.1E14 at today's retail which is roughly the GDP of the world for 7.5 years. Now figure you're asking BP to manufacture 4E11 solar panels... that's 400,000,000,000 panels. Maybe they'd be bit cheaper at that volume.
But we can reasonably assume typical cost reductions and a combination of PV and solar heating; the world uses 1.2E14 total kwh/year for all purposes, but only 1.3E13 kWh global consumption of electricity. If we replaced only electricity consumption for the whole world at RETAIL prices it would cost only 70% of the world GDP for one year and require only 4E10 panels and 5.6E10 square meters of land area - out of 1.3E14 available in the world, or 0.04% of the planet's land (0.4% to replace all energy consumed for all reasons with PV).
The US used 2.8E13 kWh total energy in all forms last year (3.6E12 kWh electricity) which would require 9.6E10 solar panels to generate or 1.3E11 square meters and $7.2E13 at retail. This would occupy 1.4% of our land area of 9.4E12 square meters..
We've paved 1.6E11 square meters: that is we've subsidized the auto and petroleum industry with a welfare gift of 1.7% of the total land area of the nation, more than it would take to be entirely energy independent.
Continuing the car comparison, our roadways, taxpayer financed at a cost of about $2M/lane mile or $340/sq meter, cost $1.9E13 in today's dollars compared to $7.2E13 to convert the entire country's entire energy use to PV. Realistically we'd convert only the electricity consumption of 3.6E12 kWh at $9.3E12 at RETAIL, less than half of what we taxpayers have given the auto and oil industry, not including the value of the real estate.
Converting the entire world to PV entirely as a collective effort would piss off the libertarians and the oil magnates (generally for different reasons) but doing so would cost less than the corporate welfare we've dumped on the oil and auto industries. Even today it's hardly insurmountable. Compared to the value of a zero emissions, entirely sustainable energy economy, it's trivial.
One argument I had with a friend about our capture of the Iraqi oil was over the counter argument presented by some math challenged conservative pundits (are any conservative pundits not math challenged?) that the oil costs would not offset the cost of taking Iraq, as if the suggestion that we are there to protect our oil was somehow ludicrous.
This argument ignores the most obvious counter that taxpayers are footing the $200B bill while Haliburton takes the profits, which before the invasion were going to Fr