Oil From Trash
Popular Science photo
It sounds too good to be true: a machine that turns trash into oil. But it exists— and the first commercial model has been sold to a company in Arizona to turn junk tires into oil, natural gas, and other reusable products.
Frank Pringle invented the machine, called Hawk, about ten years ago, but the first commercial orders are just beginning to trickle in. His company, Global Resources Corporation, now sells bus-sized units for commercial applications— but none are yet in operation. Pringle claims the machine processes trash with no water used and no harmful emissions. Says Popular Science:
That first machine will be installed (if permits are approved) in the Sonoran Desert by a company called Eco Renewable Energy— which is currently gathering what it hopes will be a six-month supply of tires, mostly by picking up junk tires from the desert."Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running)."
It's always seemed to me that there ought to be a way to extract the oil from all the carbon-based trash now being sent to landfills, such as plastic, styrofoam, and the like. Now there is.
Type "Changing World Technologies" into your favorite search engine to find a company in Missouri that is doing a similar process on a larger scale to produce biodeisel.
The process is called "thermal de-polymerization" and the feedstock is basically anything carbon based from truck tires to turkey feathers.
They have, however, had some problems with odor, which should be a minor technical problem, not a "show-stopper."
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I like the article, but Changing World Technologies seems like they get a lot more oil, ("Anything into Oil", Discover magazine) than the guys do now, in your article. For every 100 btus they (CWT)harvest from their "stock" they have only 15 btus to fuel the process. That is unlike the guys in your article. They seem to pay 50 % just to fuel process. M!!!!
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Micky, my calculator says 956,000 BTUs is less than 6% of 17 million BTUs. Am I missing something?
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