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On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:09:50 -0400, you wrote: >At 05:05 PM 4/14/2005 -0500, you wrote: >>http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11370598.htm >> >>Posted on Tue, Apr. 12, 2005 >> >>Innovative turkey-to-oil plant eats money, spits out fowl odor >> >>By KAREN DILLON The Kansas City Star >> >>Photos by NORMAN NG/The Kansas City Star > >>"This is a first-of-a-kind plant in the world," said Paul Halberstadt, a >>vice president at the Renewable Environmental Solutions plant. Poultry >>waste is turned into crude oil at the Carthage facility. But it comes with >>a side effect - an unexplained stench. Halberstadt said the company has >>added scrubbers to reduce odors. >> >>Carthage was promised an odor-free plant. That didn't happen. Now Mayor >>Kenneth Johnson worries that the town is getting a bad reputation. "This >>type of publicity isn't going to help tourism," he said. >> >>CARTHAGE, Mo. - The eyes of the world have been on this Missouri town for >>several years to see if a New York businessman can really turn turkey >>leftovers into oil. >> >>The answer: A resounding yes. In fact, a revolutionary plant is turning >>270 tons of poultry waste into 300 barrels of crude oil every day. > >Of course it stinks--its a rendering plant. But lets do some >back-of-the-envelope math: Not exactly. What's happening is the vent filters are getting overwhelmed and some of the odor that should be trapped is getting out. And it's a NASTY odor: doesn't take many PPM for neighbors to notice. Of course, they've also gotten odor complaints on days the plant is shut down for maintenance. That whole end of Carthage smells like a Thanksgiving dinner, btw, 24/7 because the ConAgra Butterball Turkey plant is inside the city limits. The RES plant is located on their property to save on transport costs. Future plants will be located out in the boonies where possible. >300 bbl x 42 gal/bbl = 12600 gal x (assume) 7.8 lbs/gal = 98280 lbs/ 2000 >lbs/ton = 49 tons/ day of "oil." > >49 tons of "oil" from 270 tons of offal. Hmmm 18 percent yield. Where is >the rest of it going? The conversion efficiency is 80% - 85%. That means for every 100BTU worth of offal processed, 85BTU worth of oil is produced. The other 15BTU is used to power the process. No other refuse conversion process produces a net energy return: That is, if 100BTU worth of feedstock goes in it takes (in most cases) 150-300BTU of energy to turn it into oil for a net energy LOSS. >Probably they are just rendering out the fat content and doing a >transesterification on it n the usual manner. Nope. The feedstock is ground up and mixed with water to form a slurry about the consistency of peanut butter. This is put in a 1st stage reactor chamber that heats it to 500oC under around 800PSI for 15-20 minutes. Under these conditions the water turns into an organic acid that breaks down the organic molecules into short-strand hydrocarbon molecules. The pressure is then released suddenly which causes the water to "flash off" (this is where they're having trouble with the odor escaping). The remaining organic soup is transferred to another reactor where it's heated again for a period of time depending on the feedstock so that methane gas is cooked out. the methane is pumped off to a cogenerator and used to generate power for the plant. This is the *only* source of energy for the plant: It's completely self-sustaining. The remaining soup is moved off to a cracking reactor where it's converted into #4 fuel oil and remaining solids are settled out. Aside from oil you get inorganic chemicals suitable for use as fertilizer, chemically pure carbon black, and sterile gray water. The fertilizer is sold to local farmers, the carbon black goes to a recycling plant, and the gray water is clean enough to pour down a storm drain. The oil is sold to a local electric co-op. Nothing goes to waste except the gray water and nothing is landfilled. The only problem with the plant aside from the occasional stink is that the turkey offal isn't free. Two years ago because of the "Mad Cow Scare" the FDA was going to completely ban the use of animal byproducts in animal feed. This is already the law in Europe because of all the problems they were having there. However the FDA exempted poultry because it's not a known source of the prions believed responsible for Mad Cow. The price of turkey-guts shot through the roof, so to speak, as an animal feed filler. ConAgra was going to *give* them the turkey offal so they wouldn't have to pay the tipping fees to landfill it. Now instead of costing RES ~$15/bbl it's costing them $80/bbl to produce oil. They're getting about $55/bbl for the #4; do the math. The fertilizer is making up some of the difference and the EPA gave them a $15 Million dollar grant to develop the technology so they're OK for the next couple of years. But their next TCP plant is going to be in Ireland because the offal is free. CWT is building a plant in Colorado to process shredded tires and that may be profitable. The technology works on any carbon-based feedstock, yielding varying ratios of oil, fertilizer, carbon black, and gray water. It's great on municipal waste because it completely breaks the stuff down and sterilizes it. That's why the EPA got on board: They are having a hell of a time dealing with the MSW from the coastal cities now. Inland farmers are starting to reject the stuff because they've figured out it's still contaminated and not really safe to spread over their fields. -- Paleontologists recently announced they have discovered when Man first discovered language: Just after he invented the hammer and nail. And it was BAD language. |
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