Thermal Depolymerization is the Energy Crisis Solution by Turning Trash into Treasure

I saw a program yesterday about this semi-new process called Thermal Depolymerization or TDP. Basically it's a method of taking ANY organic material and converting it over to crude oil. The oil it produces can be used in ALL of the same ways we use the oil we're drilling for today and are about to allegedly run out of soon.

Even better, it's a closed system that uses recycled material containing carbon and converts it using a 4 step process of Heat and Pressure. Even the water used in the process is again recycled and used over and over again. A small fraction of the energy it produces is once again used to power the system itself but still giving off plenty more for use elsewhere. Best part is of course, that it's using Our Waste which is already a Huge Problem that's Growing Bigger every second.

Here's the info I'm sure you're waiting to read rather than listening to me blabber on about it without talking about any of the real "Technical Stuff". So here ya go:

Thermal Depolymerization (TDP) is a process which seems to be able to convert any organic material into any product now produced from oil.

Organic materials include wood, leaves, grass, food, paper, plastic, paint, cotton, synthetic fabrics, sludge from sewage, animal parts, bacteria, any carbohydrates, or hydrocarbons. These are all materials which we now send to landfill with the exception of metal, ceramics, and glass. Also included is all agricultural waste which is now burned in the fields or buried.

Products currently produced from oil include natural gas, propane, kerosene, gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, home heating oil, and lubricating oil. With further processing, plastics, paints, refrigerants, and thousands of other chemicals used in industry are produced.

So, it turns out that TDP will convert our landfill and agricultural waste into the same products which are currently produced from fossil oil. All of our existing equipment can be powered in the same way and landfill will be eliminated.
www.thermaldepolymerization.org...

Here is a link to the Owners of TDP technology:
www.changingworldtech.com...

There isn't hardly anything being said about this for some reason even though it's been going for years now. A fully functioning plant is already operating, not at full capacity however, for reasons unknown as of yet. I believe it has to do with "outside pressure" and the typical "expert evaluations" needing to take place first. So what do you say we check this out and if it's even close to what it claims to be, then let's spread the word.

I guess I'm the only one who finds this to be a topic worth discussing??? I guess everyone else here already has a plan to deal with the so called energy crisis we're all facing, huh???

Well, here's some more for those who are interested:

"The potential is unbelievable," says Michael Roberts, a senior chemical engineer for the Gas Technology Institute, an energy research group. "You're not only cleaning up waste; you're talking about distributed generation of oil all over the world."

"This is not an incremental change. This is a big, new step," agrees Alf Andreassen, a venture capitalist with the Paladin Capital Group and a former Bell Laboratories director. The offal-derived oil, is chemically almost identical to a number two fuel oil used to heat homes.

Andreassen and others anticipate that a large chunk of the world's agricultural, industrial, and municipal waste may someday go into thermal depolymerization machines scattered all over the globe. If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil. Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil. Referring to U.S. dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East, R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and an adviser to Changing World Technologies, says, "This technology offers a beginning of a way away from this."

But how can we be sure that this isn't some scam or just the latest version of the Perpetual Motion Device??? Well, I'd say look at who's interested in it and better yet, look who's INVESTING $MONEY$ in it. Well, what do you know, it just so happens that the Multi-Billionaire Howard Buffet, son of Warren Buffet happens to be one. In fact, they have their First Fully Operational Plant built right next to the Butterball Turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri and uses the waste from that plant to create fuel, minerals & water.

A group of 15 investors and corporate advisers, including Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, stroll among the sparks and hissing torches, listening to a tour led by plant manager Don Sanders. A veteran of the refinery business, Sanders emphasizes that once the pressurized water is flashed off, "the process is similar to oil refining. The equipment, the procedures, the safety factors, the maintenance—it's all proven technology."

Brian Appel, CEO of Changing World Technologies, strolls through a thermal depolymerization plant in Philadelphia. Experiments at the pilot facility revealed that the process is scalable—plants can sprawl over acres and handle 4,000 tons of waste a day or be "small enough to go on the back of a flatbed truck" and handle just one ton daily, says Appel.

The technicians here have spent three years feeding different kinds of waste into their machinery to formulate recipes. In a little trailer next to the plant, Appel picks up a handful of one-gallon plastic bags sent by a potential customer in Japan. The first is full of ground-up appliances, each piece no larger than a pea. "Put a computer and a refrigerator into a grinder, and that's what you get," he says, shaking the bag. "It's PVC, wood, fiberglass, metal, just a mess of different things. This process handles mixed waste beautifully." Next to the ground-up appliances is a plastic bucket of municipal sewage. Appel pops the lid and instantly regrets it. "Whew," he says. "That is nasty."

"We've got a lot of confidence in this," Buffett says. "I represent ConAgra's investment. We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't anticipate success." Buffett isn't alone. Appel has lined up federal grant money to help build demonstration plants to process chicken offal and manure in Alabama and crop residuals and grease in Nevada. Also in the works are plants to process turkey waste and manure in Colorado and pork and cheese waste in Italy. He says the first generation of depolymerization centers will be up and running in 2005. By then it should be clear whether the technology is as miraculous as its backers claim.
www.freerepublic.com...

Corporation, U.S. Senator 'grease the wheels' of fuel production
www.dailyvidette.org...

Turkey Fuel? Factory to Turn Guts Into Crude Oil
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Very interesting find, Mojom.

Thermal Depolymerisation offers a good solution to oil shortage and waste management in theory. Who knows, perhaps it might take off commercially, at the moment though, its commercial viability is questionable.



The only functional industrial scale TD plant, in Carthage, Missouri, USA produces around 400 barrels a day from waste, but production costs are $80 a barrel. If they can reduce the production costs then they might be in business. Until then, its another good, yet impracticable/unviable idea.

Some further reading

[edit on 15-4-2005 by Paul]

Originally posted by Paul
Very interesting find, Mojom.

Thermal Depolymerisation offers a good solution to oil shortage and waste management in theory. Who knows, perhaps it might take off commercially, at the moment though, its commercial viability is questionable.

The only functional industrial scale TD plant, in Carthage, Missouri, USA produces around 400 barrels a day from waste, but production costs are $80 a barrel. If they can reduce the production costs then they might be in business. Until then, its another good, yet impracticable/unviable idea.

Some further reading

[edit on 15-4-2005 by Paul]

Yes but it's important to consider all the different perspectives from which to view this from. Let me list some of the things I'm talking about to give a better discription of what I mean.

1.)As of February, 2005, the Carthage plant received an economic setback. It was thought that concern over mad cow disease would prevent the use of turkey waste as cattle feed, and thus this waste would be free. However, turkey waste is still used as feed, so the feed stock costs from $30 to $40 per ton, adding $15 to $20 per barrel to the cost of the oil. Final cost is $80 a barrel, making it uneconomic compared to conventional diesel selling for about $50 a barrel. However, this setback does not apply to other forms of waste such as plastics. In addition, Britain has outlawed using turkey waste as cattle feed.
en.wikipedia.org...

So, when talking about the cost per barrel issue we're looking at current production at $50per. vs. TDP at $80per. However, you need to take into account the fact that they're still Purchasing "Waste" material, in this case chicken waste, which is adding to the cost. Other Major Industrialized countries have banned the use of using feedstock because of problems that result from "Feeding Animals to Animals" which has been most obvious lately with the Mad Cow issue. So if we were to wise up and stop "Selling Animal Waste" as Feed for other animals, which BTW are herbavores in the first place, that would then take the cost down $15-$20per. making it $50 vs. $65. But most importantly even if that never happens is the fact that we're still only talking about "One" of the possible sources of fuel.

2.) Aside from using fresh chicken guts and having to pay for them too, we are up to our eyeballs in waste which is just sitting and growing bigger every day. So let's use that instead. Think about the offset cost that could be saved when considering that not only are you making fuel and light oil but at the same time getting rid of waste in the landfills. We are paying for the waste to be burned as it is now, which makes it totally useless & causes mass pollution and produces Nothing.

3.) The cost will of course be high for anything that is new and is using a single plant with limited resources. Even with that the price is extremely close to todays methods. Just imagine how cheap it would become once TDP was as active in the market place as Big Oil!!

4.) It would keep the money Local instead of importing everything from other counties. Talk about a big difference there. What good does it do this country and our economy to purchase oil from the Arab Nations only to take what we've purchased and burn it all up then have to buy more??? In the end where is all our money going be??? In the hands of Big Oil Elite on the other side of the planet. Why do that when we could be processing our own waste right here in our own land which would also mean that we'd be helping OUR ECONOMY!! Think about it, every dollar you'd be spending at the pumps would be going right back into your local economy for this country rather than some "Multi-National".

There are just a few to think about. Comments???

[edit on 15-4-2005 by mOjOm]

I can't find the link to the process, but when I do I'll post it - but a guy made a cheaper way to do this, costing the same amount as normal oil (per-barrel) and Shell spent a hell of a lot of money on getting the rights to this invention.

So once the oil runs out, the process to make oil cheaply will always be in the hands of the Elite for another 100ish years.

Thermal Depolymerization (TDP) sounds "too good to be true". The article you post seems to be calling for verification from; "completely independent engineers, scientists, and accountants to review the operation of the Carthage plant and the results of the pilot plant in Philly". Has there been any further update on any verification?

To use the tons of trash polluting our world, and in the process not adding to the pollution of the air, with the result of producing the energy needs of the world. How can you beat that?

Or have I misunderstood what TDP is about?

.
Oil contains a certain proportion of Hydrogen & Carbon usually with some Oxygen.

This sounds WAY to simplistic.

You would have to break down any fiberous material. That would take energy and different fibres would take different methods to completely break them down. (= complicated and difficult to make cheap and efficient)
You might be able to use anaerobic bacteria to ferment and produce oils and/or alcohols.

This sounds like some kind of panacea. That is what sales people want you to believe when they sell it to you.

I would check this out scruptuously before i bought into it.

I smell Orwellian speak for burning the trash. [Thermal depolymerrization sounds like a euphamism for burn]

BTW have you ever seen one of those little hand-held crank printers that print real 20 dollar bills? I will sell it to you for just $1000.00. This sounds like that.
.

Originally posted by Mahree
Thermal Depolymerization (TDP) sounds "too good to be true".

You know, Hugh Hefner may also say that to himself every single night, however when he wakes up he realizes that it is "True" and "To Be" him it's undoubtedly "Good"!!! Just one way to illustrate a real world example of when that type of thinking is Incorrect and while it does keep us safe most of the time it can also cost us our dreams coming true.

What if Bruce Lee would have decided that becoming a Martial Arts Legend and a Rich and Famous Movie Star was just "too good to be true" and just worked at Wal-Mart instead?? IMO, he would have not only threw away his dreams for nothing but the rest of us too would have also lost something as well. Be it his knowledge of Combat, Philisophical Wisdom or even the Enterainment & Inspiration that he provides for others, that fact still remains that it would have been a Great Loss from such a Small Bad Decision.

The article you post seems to be calling for verification from; "completely independent engineers, scientists, and accountants to review the operation of the Carthage plant and the results of the pilot plant in Philly". Has there been any further update on any verification?

Yes, there is plenty, all you have to do is go read it. That article was from 2003. Read the following which are from 2004 & 2005 respectively. Also, one is from USAToday and the other from Fortune Magazine, so we're not talking about small time press here either.

Killing germs, reducing waste, making oil: TDP might be the next big thing
This was going to be a column about oil. Instead, it's also about disease, poison, and a cool way to get rid of both. Actually, it's about a new technology — a new process that is going to make a Difference. One that's going to change things, and one you're going to be hearing a lot more about. (mojom - It would seem that someone or something is actually working to keep it quiet though, IMO. Now why would anyone want to do that?? I'd bet the "who" and "why" are linked by common motive so if you find out one you'd find the other as well!!)

The process is called thermal depolymerization or TDP, and the company that's doing it is West Hempstead, N.Y.-based Changing World Technologies.
Specifically, TDP turns just about anything into oil and fertilizer. And when I say "anything," I mean that: animal waste, medical waste, human waste. Used diapers, used computers, used tires. Anything that's not radioactive can be tossed into the hopper.

...And this is not just a theoretical process. It ain't cold fusion. TDP is real, out-of-the-lab stuff. It's happening on an industrial scale, today...

The City of Philadelphia currently turns a lot of its sewage sludge into landfill. (All together now: Eww.) But working with Changing World, the city is planning a TDP project to divert that sludge — and whatever pathogens are living in it — away from the land and into oil. Local power companies can then turn the oil into electricity. Win, win, win.

At first, it was the oil angle that was TDP's selling point. In case you hadn't noticed, we get a lot of ours from countries that don't like us very much. Then they give our money to people who use it to kill us. So TDP was being touted as a way to reduce our imports. In fact, get this: According to Appel, there are more than 12 billion tons of agricultural waste generated every year in the U.S. (And that's undoubtedly a low number; it's based on 1988 figures.) Were it all to be put through the TDP process it would turn into more than four billion barrels of light crude oil.

That ain't chicken feed. (Not once the system's done processing it, anyway.) According to the U.S. Department of Energy, we imported about 3.3 billion barrels of crude oil in 2002.

In other words, if we converted just our agricultural waste to light crude using TDP, we could stop our oil imports…and then some.
link to the rest....
www.usatoday.com...

...and from 2005 Fortune Magazine...
A Turkey In Your Tank
link to rest
www.fortune.com...

How is that for verified proof that it's for real??? There is more out there too but you'll have to find it yourself. I've learned that for people to know something is true they have to come to that decision on their own and not because they "Believed" someone else, which in this case would be me. That's fine, cause if you do the research to prove me wrong you'll still be looking into the situation, which is all that needs to happen for this to work. People looking into the situation!!

To use the tons of trash polluting our world, and in the process not adding to the pollution of the air, with the result of producing the energy needs of the world. How can you beat that?

Or have I misunderstood what TDP is about?

No, I'd say you Understood what TDP is perfectly!! Best part is, it's continues to look just as good as you get into the details and start to imagine just how positive the future "could" be for life on this planet.

So why hasn't there been more press on this groundbreaking technology?
I'm sure people would love to hear about this.

Originally posted by TJ11240
So why hasn't there been more press on this groundbreaking technology?
I'm sure people would love to hear about this.

Well, there has been press about it as I've shown here already. As I said in my first post there was even hour long program on the science channel about it just the other day. But you can see, even here at ATS and posting about it in the "Peak Oil" section, everyone seems determined to just avoid it. As I've also mentioned if you'd like to look into it all it takes is about 10 seconds to google up page after page of material talking about it, but that is obviously too much work for most people.

Even with me spoon feeding the information to everyone it seems they still just keep saying the same thing, like "why haven't I ever heard of it??" or "why isn't anyone talking about it??" and so on. Well, now you've heard of it!!! Now someone is talking about it!!! What more do you expect?? Would you like me to come take everyone by the hand one at a time, convince them to stop watching American Idol on the boob tube for minute, pull back their eyelids for them and then explain to them every detail about the world that is right before their very eyes???

Maybe nobody really cares about this stuff and they're only pertending to because eveyone else is doing the same. Maybe the big business of "Energy" and the ones who control it now would lose a lot of money and power over things if people found out how to use some other type of energy besides what they offer. Maybe everyone else is talking about it and they just aren't telling you! How the hell would I know the answer to this??? If you'd like to know why you haven't heard of it till now, then maybe you should go ask around. I've only recently discovered it myself and to a lesser degree I've been asking myself that same question. Only I've come to realize that it has something to do with all of what I've mentioned above and probably some other things I haven't mentioned.

What you should be looking at however is the now. Now, you are aware of it. Now you've heard of it. So maybe NOW is a good time to begin the effort of freeing yourself from the chains that hold you in a position where you are forced to live in slavery out of ignorance of some better way. A way in which you are capable of providing for yourself what is needed to survive instead of simply surviving off the scraps that are thrown to you. That is the only thing I can offer you in answering your question, because I admit I definately do not have all the answers. Neither does anyone else however, so I am certainly going to make the effort of answering them for myself instead of waiting until someone will answer them for me.

this is a great find, mOjOm. i'm also suprised it hasn't gotten a bigger response both in the media and on this forum.

After doing more research, I found a few artcicles about it such as this one from USATODAY. www.usatoday.com...

TDP seems to have around the same energy effieciency as many other biofuel technologies. Then theres the whole waste management side of it. Instead of having incinerators and landfills, we could have these plants throughout the world. The only downside is that a barrel of oil from TDP is projected to cost close to $80. So we'll see what happens.

Well, I'm excited, although I must admit, I was kind of looking forward to Peak Oil and the changes it would bring.

The best part of this technology is that the basic infrastructure is already in place for it - everything already runs on oil derivatives. It's simply about energy companies changing suppliers of "crude" from Middle Easterners to Midwesterners.

Zip

This is a great idea, killing two birds with one stone, but is by no means a solution. I have posted links to this site, CWT.com, on various threads in this forum, and gotten some great feedback. But the only problem that prohibits this idea from becomming the solution to our oil needs is weight. The oil extracted from this process is by no means the oil that bleeds through the deserts of Saudi Arabia. This is a much lighter oil than crude oil: think a pint of beer as compared to a pint of vodka. This oil is more likely to be used to power your lamp for camping rather than fuel your car to get to the camp grounds.

Good point. They said it was comparable to a half oil/half gasoline mix. With further refinement though, it can become a variety of products.
It'll be interesting to see how quickly a second plant is built (not counting the pilot plant in Philly).

TDP was discussed last month at this thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Unfortunately, TDP, while a promising technology, is not anywhere near the panacaea we'd all like it to be.

I had read that it is just like a big soup pot wherein things are cooked and pressurized and eventually give off the oils and organic carbon products that we use...
it does seem to have some byproducts that can't be used though. Perhaps they need to make a few more studies to see what danger these byproducts might contain.
the first smokestack scrubbers were considered a saving grace until they figured out that they scrubbers were hopelessly contaminated afterwards...

From what I've gathered, I understand the waste product to be a mix of minerals. This mainly depends on what went into the machine. Products from metal scraps and plastics would differ greatly from biomass.

And I don't think those minerals would become pollutants. Many dangerous compounds produced from heavy machinery are relatively large molecules. Remember, TDP breaks down the large into the small. But we'll have to wait and see if my guess is true.

You may be saying "wait isnt the oil it produces just polluting the atmosphere?" That is true, but remember that it doesn't affect the current carbon dioxide levels. Nothing is taken from the ground during the process. So it wont contribute to global warming.

I read about, and saw a show (on Discovery?) about ten years ago.
TD is still in it's egineering stage, for all intents and purposes, but certainly is a viable solution. What makes this good is that ANYTHING carbon-based can be processed; turkey entrails (PETA will have something to say about that.... maybe they can make some money from the animals they kill), rubber tires, just to name a couple. And the heat generated by the process is recycled (it's a closed system).

Helium3 is still the most exciting to me, because it's BTU's-per-pound are out of this world.... literally. It can be processed by heating moon soil; three shuttle-loads could power America for one year.

Then, the only thing we'd need oil for are all the other tens of thousands of things that are based on it.

[edit on 20-12-2005 by zappafan1]

[edit on 20-12-2005 by zappafan1]

Originally posted by TJ11240
From what I've gathered, I understand the waste product to be a mix of minerals. This mainly depends on what went into the machine. Products from metal scraps and plastics would differ greatly from biomass.

And I don't think those minerals would become pollutants. Many dangerous compounds produced from heavy machinery are relatively large molecules. Remember, TDP breaks down the large into the small. But we'll have to wait and see if my guess is true.

You may be saying "wait isnt the oil it produces just polluting the atmosphere?" That is true, but remember that it doesn't affect the current carbon dioxide levels. Nothing is taken from the ground during the process. So it wont contribute to global warming.

Carbon-based waste only.... that's how it works. Oh...... "global warming" is caused by water vapor and solar activity...... but that's detailed in another thread. Carbon dioxide is plant food, not a polutant.