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Transforming Waste Plastic Into $10/Barrel Fuel
Mike writes "Today Washington DC-based company Envion opened a $5 million dollar facility that they claim will be able to efficiently transform plastic waste into a source of oil-like fuel. The technology uses infra-red energy to remove hydrocarbons from plastic without the use of a catalyst, transforming 82% of the original plastic material into fuel. According to Envion, the resulting fuel can then be blended with other components, providing a source for gasoline or diesel at as low as $10 per barrel."
I've been thinking of something like this factory, on a boat equipped with fishing nets processing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Wonder how much oil is in there?
We will be mining the great pacific garbage patch to get fuel for our SUVs.
And in other news, a new law was finally passed making it legal to beat fraudsters to death with copies of their SEC filings.
RTFA: This company has already built a facility, and has already landed a contract for the fuel. They are using a well known technology, just with a slightly different take (IR instead of chemical catalysts). This doesn't exactly look like vaporware to me.
Flash point isn't a problem in an inert atmosphere.
Various technologies have been around to do this; the problem has always been scale and water consumption.
Hope these guys get somewhere with the process, and I hope the process is indifferent to the type of plastic involved. The wide variety of plastics used has always been a major problem for plastics recycling.
Of course, you're still left with a nasty sludge - plastic contains non-hydrocarbon chemicals - and this is not a replacement for petroleum since the plastics were made from petroleum to begin with. But! This may make "mining" landfills a more interesting proposition... now you can get methane, various metals (in relatively pure form) AND liquid fuels from old landfills.
=Smidge=
That's what plastic is made of!
The summary left unsaid that it is the removed hydrocarbons that are retained, and the rest discarded.
Then the retained hydrocarbons (82% of the input) is reduced to an "oil product". Tfa linked to rather thin page which explained vary little.
Further digging at environ.com yielded this:
The reactor, a vital component of the unit, utilizes a heating system that converts plastic into oil through low temperature thermal cracking in a vacuum. Using this innovative approach, the Envion Oil Generatorâ produces oil and power safely, efficiently, and economically through an environmentally sensitive process that produces a net gain in energy recaptured.
A single Envion unit is capable of processing up to 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually, producing three to five barrels of refined petroleum product per ton of plastic waste.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yes, nothing new can ever be (or have the potential for becoming) cost effective, because if it was, it would already be done by everyone, everywhere, already. Everything that can be done, is already being done. Semptember 16, 2009, is the official end date of human progress.
Or back into dinosaurs?
It doesn't matter. If they can produce this stuff in any volume, it will drive the price of oil down for everyone. If they can do it in enough volume to supply the entire United States (not likely), then other companies will spring up doing the same thing, which will also drive the price down to just above the cost of production. That's how a free marketplace is supposed to work.
That's how economics works for elastic priced goods, in a free market. Neither of which exist here.
1. Oil is inelastically priced. People will pay whatever the price is. When oil hit $130 a barrel, no one stopped consuming oil. More importantly, $70 a barrel is considered a deal, when it was priced at $40 a barrel not that long ago.
2. There is not a free market for oil. The oil is dominated by an international cartel (OPEC) that literally sets the price of oil. Oil comes on to the market to move prices down. Oil comes off of the market to drive prices up. If this technology would begin to impact prices by increasing supply, OPEC will cut production to keep the supply low. Perhaps not before driving the price down to unprofitability.
Your faith in The Market(tm) is misguided, because as you examine how the largest players in the national international economies work, one can only come to the inescapable conclusion, that they quite literally, don't play by the same rules as you.
They delude you into thinking that you and them are on the same side, but you are not one of them. You are their resource, to manipulate and exploit.
Class war? Forget it. That war is over. The middle class lost.
My middle-class parents fought bravely in the Great Class War. They were on the front lines at the Battle of Yuppie Hill, charging forth with their cards and using their meager wages to fight against the upper class. Skilled for battle by community and state colleges, their assault landed them deep into enemy territory. Luckily, they managed to carve out refuge and propagate, bringing new soldiers into the onslaught. Alas, it was too late, as the Upper Class bought out the Lower Class and together they forced my family and friends into a life of video games, malls, nights at the pub, and an affordable sedan.
Life's harsh, but we manage to make it through the night.