Potentially good news

[xiphias]

If this isn't a hoax -- and I can think of four or five times in history where almost exactly this setup was used as a hoax, and the people got away with the equivalent of millions of dollars -- it's potentially the best news I've read, like, ever.

Comments

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

From what admittedly little I remember of my science it actually looks like the theory could be sound. If it is sound then it will mean a revolution in energy and lead to major changes downward in energy costs and upwards in air cleanliness. It might also lead to complacency on energy efficiency, which could be a problem; but with energy abundance increasing the way they project we'd actually have a little more leeway.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It looks reasonable, but then, if it were a hoax, it would have to look reasonable.

If it is a hoax, though, they'll have to vanish real soon, because, once they open the major disposal of turkey guts plant, they'll need to, y'know, get rid of tons of turkey guts. That's tough to do in a surreptious manner. And they'll need to provide oil as the output stuff, which would get expensive.

So, either it's real, or the "cash in and go to Rio" part is only a month or two away.

"cash in and go to Rio"

[cheshyre]

Thanks. Now I've got the Producers running thru my head.

MAX:
And before you can say Step Five, we close on Broadway, take our two million and go to Rio!
LEO:
Rio? Nah, that'd never work.
MAX:
Oh ye of little faith. (cue song)

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

If I were less lazy than I am (I'm not) I'd email Discovery and ask them if they can find out what the patent numbers are for the process, as they did allude to there being patents granted in the article. A patent doesn't mean it's not quackery but it does make it less likely.

Of course, another way would be to find some poor willing shmoe who lives near there, provide 'em with a video camera, batteries and tapes and ask for a day of unedited footage from a visit to the plant. If it's a scam they likely wouldn't want that at the plant, but a legit operation would welcome it. You might even make a bit of money from making it a documentary.

[goljerp]

A patent doesn't mean it's not quackery but it does make it less likely.

I dunno. There have been some pretty wacky patents granted (or pending) - the one on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sideways swinging, or the one that claimed to be able to compress any arbitrary input stream in a loss-less fashion. So I don't have much faith in the current patent system.

[brooksmoses]

A third possiblity, though, which I suspect is at least as likely: the science works and it's not a hoax, but it's not economically viable. It may be that the end result is perfectly good fuel, but not close enough to gasoline for anyone to use in modern finicky cars without computer retrofits. It may be that the process can't be made to be efficient enough to make oil without taking more energy than the oil is worth. It may be that it simply costs too much to build and run the system. It may be that it would work but that they can't build a large enough plant to get the economies of scale that they need to be profitable.

On the other hand, it might, with a bit of luck and sufficient funding, actually work and produce gasoline-equivalent at below market rate. I can't imagine that it will produce anywhere near enough to create an actual revolution, but it might produce enough to be worthwhile.

[brooksmoses]

I can't seem to access the site this morning, but I'm guessing from the comments that this is the same one that wcg commented on yesterday.

If so ... the basic idea of making oil from waste organic matter is mostly sound science. And I would guess that this is probably a relatively sound implementation of it.

On the other hand, it needs to be more than just sound science.

First, it needs to be sound thermodynamics, by which I mean that it needs to make more energy-content of oil than the energy the system needs to operate. Many such processes flounder on this problem; growing biomass for ethanol is widely reported to do so. Since this operates on waste, there at least isn't an energy cost associated with producing the raw material, but I suspect the chemical processing is significantly more energy-intensive than making ethanol.

Second, it needs to be sound economics. This one is even harder than the thermodynamics: it needs to cost less than equivalent from crude oil. And therein lies the rub; crude oil is a remarkably inexpensive stuff, and the processing plants are fairly cheap on a per-volume basis due to the vast amounts they process (and the relative simplicity of the process). Again, using waste for raw material provides some advantage, since in some cases you can get paid to take it away, but the processing is likely to be expensive, particularly since it will be being done in relatively small quantities.

Note, also, that making something that's roughly like gasoline is much easier than making something that's an exact enough match to be substituted in car engines without requiring modificiations or affecting performance; I'm not sure which they claim, but getting from the former to the latter requires more energy and monetary input into the process.

So, it's perfectly possible for this sort of thing to be a hoax -- or, for that matter, to fail despite honest intentions of the people involved -- despite having a chemical process that works as advertised.

Beyond that, it's unlikely to change the world by itself. There simply isn't enough turkey waste (and the like) in the country to make enough oil to make more than a small dent in our fuel needs. But, if it can be made at prices competitive with gasoline, and with compositions that are completely equivalent to gasoline, then it's still useful. And of such small steps are useful revolutions made.

[goljerp]

My personal hoax-o-meter puts this at an 8, where 1 is "sell plasma to get more money to invest in it" and 10 is "get out the tar and feathers".

The claims being made -that anything with carbon can be input - are pretty broad.

In addition to the thermodynamic problems - are they really not using more energy to process the stuff than is in their output, there are a couple of things that sound iffy to me.

First of all, their claim that no harmful byproducts are produced. I find it hard to believe. Also they say "minerals" are byproducts... well, what's that? Solid waste they can't process... but how much? What's it made of?

How long does it take to tune their machine to different input streams? What happens if it's not tuned precisely? How do they tune it? I suspect that the answers might be "a long time", "noxious goop messes everything up", and "carefully" might be the answers even if they're otherwise legit.

Another thing to realize is that if they're using catalysts to help process the goop, there are volume issues there as well... it might work great with one batch, but then require frequent infusions of new catalysts... so it might work fine on paper, but not be sustainable in practice.

So, in conclusion, I'm not holding my breath.