JBI's Plastic To Oil Gets Operating Permit

Whammy666 writes "JBI, Inc. announced that it has entered into a formal Consent Order with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Region 9, which will allow the Company to immediately run its Plastic2Oil (P2O) process commercially and begin construction of an additional processor at its Niagara Falls, New York P2O facility. JBI has developed a process that takes waste plastic destined for landfills and converts it into diesel fuel, gasoline, and natural gas with very little residue. The process is said to be very efficient thanks to a special catalyst developed by JBI and an attention to process optimization. That plastic water bottle you tossed in the trash could soon be fueling your car instead of sitting in a landfill for 1000 years."

Comments

Re:Given how much oil it takes to make plastic....

[zero0ne]

From their website, it shows that 1 kilogram of plastic converts roughly to one litre of oil.

So the big question in my book is, how much does 1 kilogram of scrap plastic cost, and how much power is needed to do that conversion.

If we say that one litre of oil is worth ~$1, 1 tonne of plastic is ~$200, and power used for one kilogram conversion is a minuscule 1kilowatt.

You have ~$0.30 in direct costs, but after factoring in the plant, machinery, tankers, etc etc etc, the margins on this process must be hair thin.

OH, thats right, lets not forget the government subsidies!

Floating plastic in the ocean

[scsirob]

I remember reading about a huge amount of plastic floating in the ocean. Since it was just garbage no-one seemed interested in cleaning that up.

Now this plastic has become a valuable supply for producing oil, I'm sure some entrepreneur will stand up and collect it for a profit!

Re:Floating plastic in the ocean

[Asic Eng]

No yet, I think. The "garbage patch" is a huge area of the ocean which consists of a mixture of plastic particles and sea water. Getting the plastic out of that corrosive sea water, in an inaccessible location - that's going to be a lot more expensive than recycling plastic which would otherwise be transported to a landfill. You'd probably start mining closed landfills first before you'd consider the garbage patch.

Re:Someday

[Adolf Hitroll]

Do you mean continent?

BTW, that's what you get when you let fucking sodas define your personality: very little of these bottles are drunk by thirsty people.

Re:Just what we need...

[Pharmboy]

I think that is the main point: You take a barrel of oil and you get to use it twice. And while the whole world is fretting about CO2, the idea of reducing the footprint of plastic trash from 100% to 1% is nothing to sneeze at. Add the other ongoing research to create alcohol out of cellulose (another major portion of trash), and all of a sudden you are virtually "mining" trash by reusing the plastics and paper, making recovering of the aluminum and steel easier. This also decreases water pollution in the long run.

What matters is that using plastics to create oil isn't going to INCREASE CO2, as those cars would be burning something or another to run regardless of source. What also matters is that this would DECREASE the need for agriculture to be specific for fuels, which pushes food prices up and increases the amount of fertilizer (and other pollutants) in the system. It isn't a silver bullet that fixes pollution, but it can be part of a better overall energy policy.