A New Process Turns Sewage Into Crude Oil (newatlas.com)

Big Hairy Ian shares this report from New Atlas: The U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has found a way to potentially produce 30 million barrels of biocrude oil per year from the 34 billion gallons of raw sewage that Americans create every day... [T]he raw sewage is placed in a reactor that's basically a tube pressurized to 3,000 pounds per square inch and heated to 660 degrees Fahrenheit, which mimics the same geological process that turned prehistoric organic matter into crude oil by breaking it down into simple compounds, only...it takes minutes instead of epochs... The end product is very similar to fossil crude oil with a bit of oxygen and water mixed in and can be refined like crude oil using conventional fractionating plants.
After six years of development, they've licensed the process for a $6 million pilot plant that's expected to launch in 2018.

Comments

Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[ShooterNeo]

The USA burned through 7000 million barrels of crude oil in 2015, so 32 million from sewage conversion is just a rounding error. Also, since the sewage comes out at many disparate locations across the country, building one of these plants at every sewer plant might not even be worth the hassle.

Re:Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[guruevi]

It's almost half a percentage and it takes care of the sewage problem. It seems the process is simple enough that having one near a large city might be both useful and cheap, perhaps even farms could find it useful. Hopefully we can eventually get off crude for all our energy needs and all sorts of biodiesels might make up where oils are still necessary.

Re:Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[Cederic]

the end of oil as we know it is less than 20 years away

That was true when I was at school in 1980 and learned the word conservation.

Fucking bullshit back then too.

Re:Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[HiThere]

Actually, I suspect that heavy metals would be easy to extract from "your biocrude". At least after it had been cracked into volatiles. This would mean that the residue would be rich in heavy metals, quite possibly rich enough to compete with ores. The problem with heavy metals in sludge is that the grade of the ore is too poor, but if you take, say, 75% of the non-heavy metals away you've improved the ore remarkably. (And even if the ore is still unprofitably poor, at least you've decreased the volume you need to deal with by a LOT.)

Re:Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[Gavagai80]

In 20 years, if not taxed, oil will probably be cheaper than it is today thanks it becoming much easier to access in the arctic.

Re:Neat that it's possible, but insignificant

[ShanghaiBill]

The USA burned through 7000 million barrels of crude oil in 2015, so 32 million from sewage conversion is just a rounding error.

If you need to walk a kilometer, each step is only 0.1% of that distance, so there is obviously no point in taking a step. Thus, walking a kilometer is impossible.

Oil and internal combustion are not the problems

[perpenso]

Yeah cuz we really need more oil OK??

Oil and internal combustion engines are not the problems. The problem is a fuel that is made from sequestered carbon, carbon not part of the current atmosphere. If the fuel is made from carbon already in the atmosphere it does not necessarily contribute to climate change. Only introducing additional carbon contributes to climate change.

The preceding is more apparent when the carbon is coming out of the atmosphere directly, for example when bacteria/algae/etc create the fuel. Of course when the carbon is coming out of a "solid" there could very well be a problem, it was "sequestered" and not part of the atmosphere. However that is only looking at one "step". It seems there are two paths for that "solid". (1) Atmosphere -> Plant -> Human and (2) Atmosphere -> Plant -> Animal -> Human. So perhaps there is no net carbon gain?