Alternative Energy @ MindSay

There's a new alternative fuel process out there that is showing promise in not only providing a cheap, renewable fuel, but also for solving a landfill crisis.  Odds are you haven't even heard about it.  While the news media has been busy talking about pipe dreams like corn ethanol, wind power, or gas/electric hybrids, an experimental factory in Carthage, MO is turning turkey offal from the nearby Butterball plant into API 40+ crude oil, using a technology called thermal depolymerization.

A company called Changing World Technologies developed the process, and is currently using it in the Carthage plant with plans to open another in Pennsylvania.  One ton of turkey offal is eventually processed into 600 lbs of petroleum, 100 lbs of butane/methane, and 60 lbs of minerals.  The rest is water, which is recycled back into the system.  Turkey guts are only the beginning, as CWT has also converted plastic bottles, paper, medical waste, and tires.

The process is as follows (as described by Wikipedia):

The feedstock material is first ground into small chunks, and mixed with water if it is especially dry. It is then fed into a reaction chamber where it is heated to around 250 °C and subjected to 600 psi (4 MPa) for approximately 15 minutes, after which the pressure is rapidly released to boil off most of the water. The result is a mix of crude hydrocarbons and solid minerals, which are separated out. The hydrocarbons are sent to a second-stage reactor where they are heated to 500 °C, further breaking down the longer chains, and the resulting mix of hydrocarbons is then distilled in a manner similar to conventional oil refining.

Working with turkey offal as the feedstock, the process proved to have yield efficiencies of approximately 85%; in other words, the energy contained in the end products of the process is 85% of the energy contained in the inputs to the process (most notably the energy content of the feedstock, but also including electricity for pumps and natural gas for heating). Alternatively, if one considers the energy content of the feedstock to be free (i.e., waste material from some other process), one could consider the energy efficiency of the process to be 560% (85 units of energy made available for 15 units of energy consumed). The company claims that 15 to 20% of feedstock energy is used to provide energy for the plant. The remaining energy is available in the converted product. Higher efficiencies may be possible with drier and more carbon-rich feedstocks, such as waste plastic.

Essentially, thermal depolymerization is similar to the process the earth uses to create fossil fuels, it's just done on a much shorter time scale.  For more information, check out the Wikipedia page here.

You'd think an amazing technology like this would be on the news.  Yet strangely enough, it isn't.  The news media prefers to talk about methods that are long-shots compared to this one, but don't want to talk about a process that may one day be converting our garbage into energy.

Now that we're finally starting to wake up and realize ethanol isn't the answer, that it's causing more harm than good and is just another pit for our government to sink money into, I feel it's important that more of us are aware of TDP and other technologies that are making use of our waste products.  Thankfully, the government is funding CWT.  I really feel that this technology is going to be a major push to get us out of our energy crisis, among others.

In a time where being energy conscious is at an all time high, there are inventions that can truly revolutionize the energy industry. It is a past time of mine to keep abreast of these new technologies. I have spent a great deal of time tackling the most energy inefficient object that roams the face of this planet everyday. The car. Once the symbol of our freedom has become the pariah of the environment. Our dependance on it has also fueled the conflict in the Middle East. The writing is on the wall for the automobile. Its internal combustion engine is extremely inefficient using 70% of its enery before it even has a chance to turn the wheels. If the workplace was this inefficient, the business would go under. Both Ford and GM are in dire straits and deservedly so. If the other car manufacturers don't address the issue, they will follow.

I'd like to think that consumers are smarter than what manufacturers think. It is a fair assumption that people understand the concept of efficiency. Efficiency is the ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system. Quite a simple concept. For the sake of argument, the average number of moving parts in an internal combusiton engine on a conservative estimate would be over 100. That is a lot of friction. Add to that the transmission and the axle and universal joints and you get more friction. The automobile industry hasn't addressed this at all. Engineers completely understand the concept of efficiency. It is the cornerstone of engineering. Yet in the last one hundred years, no one has been able to produce an efficient vehicle. Actually that is not true. When cars were first being manufactured, almost half of them were electric.

The electric motor is approximately 90% efficient and significantly more powerful than an internal combustion engine. It also has one moving part. The electric motor has two parts, the stator and the rotor. The concept of efficiency gave way to market infrastructure. Electric motors last longer and require very little maintenance. It is easy to understand why the manufacturers went the route they did. Jobs.

Today we have a diverse marketplace compared to what we had over a century ago. The automobile industry hasn't kept pace. Essentially they have backed themselves into a corner with deep ties to the oil industry. Smart business is able to adapt to the marketplace to survive. The answer to the automobile industry has been under its nose. The electric engine. A beautiful piece of engineering that is older than the combustion engine. Clever engineers have produced a new electric motor call the motor wheel. In a stroke of genius, they have managed to put the motor in the wheel and eliminated the inefficiency of the drive train. It has been in use on buses in Europe for some time now.

In 1900, a distance record of 180 miles on a single charge was set by an electric vehicle. It is astonishing that the excuse of where are we going to store the electricity to run an electric car is still being used today. The hydrogen fuel cell is a joke. It is designed the maintain the present fuel infrastructure. The answer to our fuel source has been beating relentlessly on this planet for over 5 billion years. Recent advances in nanotechnology have produced two amazing technologies. A super capacitor using carbon nanotubes to store electrons. This device charges in seconds and doesn't share the discharge issues that exist with chemically based electron storage such as lithium ion and nickel metal hydrate batteries. The super capacitor will revolutionize electrical storage.

The final piece of the puzzle is how to recharge the power source. The problem with existing solar panels is that they are very fragile and typically come in one shape, rectangular. Scientists and engineers have been trying to come up with a way to generate electricity with something more efficient and shape friendly. Flexible solar panels have come onto the market but are similarly limited like their rigid cousins. Spray on Solar Power has been the ultimate goal and it has been achieved. The hope is that this new technology will be able to harness 30% of the sun's energy and convert it to electricity. An entire electric car can be sprayed with this material and charge itself while in the parking lot while you are at work.

We may have to take a step back in time and accept the "as long as its black" edict of Henry Ford in order take advantage of these new technologies.  At least we will be able to breath easier and it will be a lot quieter.

Mm, so yesterday Cal was all stressed, in general, so we picked up condoms and I suggested that we would have angry, rough sex later, and so we did!

We both wrestled (naked, of course) until we both had just enough energy to have sex, and then got some more energy halfway through...it was glorious, it's too bad handcuffs don't work too well on me though, I can slip out if there's any leeway :D

I think I have at least six hickeys, and even he has a couple (shocking XD)