Talk:Thermal depolymerization/Archive 1

Archive 1

Yield efficiency

The energy efficiency is not 85%. That would be the yield efficiency. Energy efficiency from a source that is costing nothing, or actually reducing the cost of disposal, is nearly infinite. If you compare the ratio of energy produced to energy consumed you will see 560% (85 BTU for 15 BTU consumed) which might be considered the efficiency for comparison with Ethanol or BioDiesel produced from agricultural processes. These are in the 320% range when you consider the energy used to produce the raw material.

Quoting a process as 85% efficient actually means that you lost energy or consumed 15% more than you produced.

Quite right, I've updated the article accordingly. Thanks! If you like, you can also edit articles with errors like this yourself; just click "edit this page" and away you go. Be bold. :) Bryan 23:58, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're talking about EROEI. It's misleading to say the "efficiency" is over 100%. Mikiemike (talk) 16:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Abuse potential

Am I the first to consider the potential for this technology to be utilized for genocide?

I think not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.232.9.147 (talk) 04:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Energy Balance

I'm curious if anybody knows what the actual energy balance is. Considering the recent Cornell/UC Berkeley study that found that the production of bio-fuels had a negative energy balance. Where does this process stand?

Does it matter? To me the only question is whether the turkey guts are more valuable as feed for animals or for feedstock for this process. pstudier 01:54, 2005 July 10 (UTC)

Define "energy balance". In the case of turkey guts, they might become animal feed, fertilizer, landfill, or feedstock to become a product (I don't know... glue?). You could compare the energy value of those other uses to this use which produces fuel. The contrast between this process, which consumes 15% of its fuel production, and other methods which consume more fuel/energy than they use would seem significant. I think alcohol production methods tend to use a lot of energy in drying material, including drying the mash after alcohol removal so the mash can be processed as animal feed; I don't know if that material could be processed by thermal depolymerization. (SEWilco 05:03, 10 July 2005 (UTC))

By Energy Balance I mean: Do we get more than one barrel of oil equivelent when we put in one real barrel of oil into the TDP process? In the recent Cornell study, it takes roughly 21% more energy out of fossil fuels to make biodiesel out of soybeans than you get in return. In other words, to create one barrel of energy of biodiesel, we need to put in 1.21 barrels of fossil fuels. This takes into account all aspects of production that use fossil energy, including farming, transportation, etc.. It matters if we're going to use this process as a partial replacement for the oil we're getting out of the ground. What feedstock needs to be used in order to get the a positive energy balance? To get that 1.1 barrels of oil out of every 1 barrel we put in?

I think this points out a basic problem in Energy Balance. For the Carthage plant described in the article, the input is turkey guts. No one expended any energy in making turkey guts. They expended energy to make turkey meat, and the guts were left over. The only energy cost properly ascribed to the guts is the replacement cost for the cattle feed that one would use instead of the turkey guts. pstudier 17:51, 2005 July 10 (UTC)

I think what he/she is getting at is the question of how much energy is used over the entire lifecycle of the feedstock (animal by-products). As complex matter, the organic molecules that comprise the turkey guts had to be produced by the input of energy. In this case, those inputs would include the energy involved in farming the food for the animals, housing and caring for the live animals, transporation of the animals, slaughtering them, and finally distributing the guts to the TCP plant. This system includes energy input from a variety of non-free sources: gasoline/diesel for vehicles to transport the animals and final products, the construction and maintenance of structures and machinery, electricity costs for all facilities involved, and finally, human labor.

If I remember correctly, this process is about 85% efficient. If the output of the process is 85 gallons, then 15 gallons was used to create the steam and pressure, etc. However, this is just measuring from when the turkey offal is fed into the machine, until the last drop of oil comes out the other end. How much fossil fuel was used to raise the turkeys and create the offal, I have no idea. By it's very nature, pretty much any end-to-end process is going be energy negative. Whiteknave 16:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with your assessment that "pretty much any end-to-end process is going to be energy negative," it seems like that may not be true here. All of the energy (farming energy, if you will) required up to the point where deceased turkeys enter the Butterball plant should probably be pro-rated as it relates to the TDP process. It would seem logical to me that you'd do this by pound. So, say it takes 100 units of energy to get one 20-pound bird from inception to its Butterball fate. For the sake of example, say 15lbs of the bird leaves the other end of the Butterball plant ready for resale. So, if all 5 of the missing pounds are sent to the TDP plant, I'd argue the energy input as it relates to the TDP process is 25 units - plus any additional energy required to move the waste from plant to plant. Mikahb 00:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I imagine a significant portion of the energy in the system can be considered to be "free" in the form of solar energy, which is harnessed and converted into chemical energy reserves in the form of the animal feed. The animals themselves in turn metabolise the feed in a very efficient biological process. Another important factor that weighs in favor of TCP is the fact that the feedstock is a byproduct, and the energy input mentioned above also contributes into other final products. Any full system efficiency analysis would have to take into account the energy value of the primary products as well. I believe these two points are the primary reasons TCP has such potential. Theoretically though, shouldn't it be more efficient to simply use TCP on the animal feed itself, as energy input into the system after that point only comes from "non-free" sources, and some of the energy stored in the animal feed must be lost when it is metabolised by the animal. --Alex

As an oil source on the basis of using waste streams to create oil, I think this process shows a lot of promise. It might supplement our oil supply until we have a feedstock specifically engineered for the process. Perhaps something genetically engineered, or an abiotic chemical process of some kind. Who knows what's possible, really. --JSleeper 19:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

As the article is about more than the Carthage plant, also consider the "energy balance" of running all of a city's garbage and sewage through this process. How does that compare to other uses of garbage and sewage? A variation is to consider the energy balance of a crop being raised specifically for this process, although that may not be realistic if the crop would be more expensive than using this process in a waste-recycling operation. (SEWilco 04:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC))

Popularity

It would be interesting to discuss (or link to a discussion) as to why this process is not more widespread. What's the catch?

My guess would be that it's a combination of newness and the fact that it isn't actually economically competitive with fossil fuels as a fuel source yet - it's still cheaper to get it out of the ground than it is to make it by thermal depolymerization. The current pilot plant is intended more as a means of waste disposal than it is a fuel source, though the fuel it produces helps to offset the cost of the waste disposal. Perhaps once oil prices have climbed more it will start looking more attractive as a substitute for that. Bryan 23:54, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Or once the technology is developed enough to reduce the cost of production? Nik42 04:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What if we factor in the cost of defense in the Middle East into the equation? What would that do to the cost of our fuel. Also, I heard that it would not be that expensive to process. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.7.15 (talk • contribs) 17:49, 2006 January 24

Why is there not a TDP plant at every garbage dump in the US? Why aren't the mountains of trash at, say, the Fresh Kills Landfill being converted into power for NYC? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.124.11 (talk • contribs) 10:49, 2006 December 5}

There are a number of recycling and purification technologies that I've read about which don't seem to be very widespread at present, even though I also read about landfills filling up, and problems with insufficiently pure water being dumped into rivers, and not enough potable water available in many areas. I don't know if these are political issues, or the technology just plain isn't good enough in spite of claims, or insufficient capital to build plants with new technologies, etc. --Scott McNay 05:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Two Small Suggestions

I have two small suggestions for this article, but as I am new to Wikipedia, I'm reluctant to make the edits directly.

Regarding the efficiency, I think the number is still off by a little bit. In reading the 85% efficiency discussion, I understood that it took 15 units of energy to produce 100 units of energy. Fifteen of those 100 units are then fed back into the process to produce another 100 units, leaving 85 units from the original "batch." In other words, 85 units of energy are produced from nothing (which is useless for calculating efficiency) or 100 units from the seed 15 units. Thus, the efficiency using the second method of calculation should be 100/15 = 660%. As a comparison, it would be interesting to know similar numbers for taking crude out of the ground and processing it. I have read (I don't know where) that it was 100 or even 1000 to 1 at one time, but that we are much closer to 1:1 these days.

Regarding the efficiency of producing biodiesel and ethanol, it was not clear which method of calculation was used to come up with 320% efficiency. I assume that it is the second method (I don't think the first method could yield greater than 100% efficiency), but it would be nice if this were stated explicitly.

Consider the fuel needed to start the process as a trivial construction expense, then 15% expense after that. (SEWilco 03:46, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Feedstocks and Output

I just did some research and added some of the specific feedstocks/output since there's been some controversy as to whether or not turkey's are the only economically viable feedstock.

Hope it helps.

I added two paragraphs to the limitations section, lest readers hope this can solve impending energy shortages by itself.

• Your paragraphs was drawing upon too many irrelevant details, such as energy needed to create metal components (perhaps such should be in a separate article about environmental footprints of various technologies). I added some info about the amount of some feedstocks, and noticed that if numerous details were listed it would become a section about waste in general and probably should be in the much-in-need-of-improvement Waste article. I know another possible feedstock is sewage but I didn't look up the figures on that (the EPA Waste section avoids that material). Comparison with total oil usage may be relevant, although fuels used in automobiles/trucks/aircraft should be the focus because those are applications which most need the high energy content of hydrocarbon fuels and thus are probably of greatest importance for replacement of "fossil" fuel. (ie, people might be willing to pay extra for hydrocarbon fuel which does not add new carbon to the atmosphere and avoids the disadvantages of tech which does not use hydrocarbon fuels) -- SEWilco 03:35, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What about tires? What would they produce? I assume a fair amount of sulfuric acid, as well as some high quality oil, but does anyone have figures?--Joel 04:45, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One very common form of waste I would like to know the numbers are for paper and other wood products, in other words cellulose. Presumably their products would be similar to those for starch and sugars, which if I'm not mistaken would be primarily gases. I believe crop waste, weeds, and grass would also fall in this category. Also, how does this process handle traditional biofuel crops such as corn, soybeans, rapeseed, and oily algae used for making conventional biodiesel and ethanol?

In the published patent application (US 2004/0192980), the figures given (in Table 1 on page 15) for pure cellulose are that for 100 lbs of cellulose the yields are 8 lbs of oil and 48 lbs of gas, with the statement that the expectation of paper would be within 10% of that figure. Rar74B 01:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Life cycle analysis seems to contradict existing material

The new anon-supplied life cycle analysis section says "Currently Thermal depolymerization is a net energy loss." However, the theory and process section says TDP produces 85 units of energy for every 15 units of energy consumed, which is a significant net gain. Am I misreading something here? Bryan 00:03, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, I think that 66.30.79.242 is doing the misreading. The blog post to which .242 added a link in the References section interprets "85% efficiency" to mean that for every 100 units of energy put into running, the process only returns 85 units -- a net energy loss. However, this is not a correct interpretation of the figures; 85% is not the total percentage of energy gotten out of the process, it's the percentage of the energy gotten out of the process which is "profit" -- which is returned after the break-even point.

I really can't see a benefit to keeping this misinformation in the article; accordingly, I'm removing 66.30.79.242's changes. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:14, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. In addition to this 85% nonsense, the source [1] deliberately confuses the alleged production cost of oil with its cost to the refiner to come up with a projected cost of $200/gallon of gasoline! Not too surprising for a source which is explicitly left wing. pstudier 01:25, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

Um? I thought it was very surprising for a left-wing source (for so it seemed to be) to say "no, no, this revolutionary new energy technology is all bunkum; the status quo of getting our oil from the Middle East, that's where it's at"... -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I believe that there is a component of the left who want to totally shut down technology. An example is the Khmer Rouge. If thermal depolymerization were able to replace Middle East oil, they would lose an excuse to take away our cars. pstudier 02:09, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

To avoid confusion, you might refer to this class of ideologue as "anti-modernist" or "neo-Luddite". For every Theodore Kaczynski, I've heard from ten loony, left-leaning conspiracy theorists who think that right-wing forces have conspired to prevent people from having electric cars. Also, I've gathered that the stereotypical totalitarian socialist imposes industrialization at the barrel of a gun, rather than finding excuses to do away with it.--Joel 06:28, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oil from anhydrous pyrolysis

Thermal depolymerization uses hydrous pyrolysis. There are several companies that are developing anhydrous pyrolysis to produce oil [2]. Any reason their technology is not mentioned while TDP is?

Might be because the process isn't called "thermal depolymerization". The page you link to calls it BioOil but I'm guessing that's a trademark rather than a generic term for the product. Is it related to the "thermo chemical conversion" process mentioned in the lead paragraph of this article? Since it's a different process from the one this article describes, starting a new article for it might be the best approach. Bryan 16:37, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The anhydrous pyrolysis methods should be in an article on that topic. Anhydrous pyrolysis is basically distillation of organic matter. Heat stuff and collect what boils out. There is a "Technology" page on that BioOil site with some details. (SEWilco 18:11, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Still, it seems to be a way to produce fuel that can be used in diesel engines from organic waste. Seems to be more economically viable than thermal depolymerization. I changed pyrolysis so that the different techniques are mentioned. Ultramarine 13:49, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I didn't see on the dynamotive.com web site the information that it is "more economically viable". I do see "Prepared feedstock (<10% moisture and 1-2 mm particle size)", so the feedstock has to be dried. Also, their equivalent of natural gas only supplies 75% of the plant's energy needs, so the plant needs an external energy source or has to burn char or oil product. (SEWilco 14:49, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC))

TDP is proven not economically viable [3]. On the other hand, the BioOil is at least predicted to be profitable [4] and seems to much closer to expansion [5] than TDP which seems to be abandoning most of its prior expansion plans.

Regarding EROI, even if this is negative, it is still a way to produce a liquid fuel useable in today's engines. Ultramarine 15:14, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That seems like a somewhat biased view of TDP's current status. Changing World Technologies thinks they can be profitable in Europe, where they can get better tax breaks and where it's illegal to feed animal waste to other animals; they aren't abandoning expansion plans, just moving them to other regions. Meanwhile you're only linking to Dynamotive's own website to show predictions of profitability, and it kind of goes without saying that a company is going to try to portray a technology they're developing as being profitable. In any event, though, that still doesn't change the apparent fact that BioOil is not thermal depolymerization and so doesn't belong in this article. Why not make an article specifically for it? Bryan 17:24, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure Bryan meant to suggest to create an article about the general process, not the company. There are several similar processes, so don't make too specific an article unless there really is a lot of information about this one process. (SEWilco 18:13, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Supercritical fluid?

Is this a supercritical fluid technique? I've been trying to see if the pressures in the system ever go over 200 bar (20 MPa) because this whole process sounds like a supercritical fluid technique. Supercritical water can breakdown almost anything, it can even tear the radioactive contaminents off of tools. 40 bar (4MPa) as stated in the article is an extremely low pressure. Does anyone know if the pressures within the system (most likely when the temperature jumps to 500C) ever goes over 200 bar? Email me because I would like to mention this in my thesis. Water's critical point is 218.3bar and 374C. --Lebite 15:43, 16 May 2005 (UTC) lebite@yahoo.com

I don't know, but I doubt it. 200 bar is awkward to work with, and they're only trying to break up organic molecules a little rather than breaking everything down to elemental forms. (SEWilco 03:00, 17 May 2005 (UTC))

No, they are trying to break down everything, even old circuit boards. And I did manage to find a report on the process. It is a supercritical process. I have to finish my thesis this week so I don't have time to add these details into the article, but I hope to add them in the future. I found a technical paper about the process used with pig manure. After flashing, it goes to subcritical and supercritical state. At this point, it should be able to break anything down to its elemental form. Supercritical water methods are the future of dyeing, cleaning, waste management, reaction media, refining, mining, and a bunch of other things. --130.230.30.231 10:33, 23 May 2005 (UTC) lebite

That makes it rather interesting that they're getting any oil out of it rather than only methane. (SEWilco 17:50, 23 May 2005 (UTC))

Thru a refining process you can control when things drop out and choose your densities. Thus you can choose for it to give you a certain weight of oil, the minerals can drop out.. you can seperate things. Like a ping pong ball in a jar of marbles.

rm apparent speculation

Critics have charged that this violates the first law of thermodynamics which implies that no system can be greater than 100% efficient. Thermal depolymerization, however, only converts the energy that is already contained in the waste product into a more usable form of energy. The entire system, which includes the sun, is probably less than 1% efficient. In the case of turkey offal, sunlgiht is converted into starches in corn, which is in turn converted into fats and protiens in turkey which is in turn converted into light crude oil in this tdp process. As a system tdp is very inefficient, and it would seem to make more sense to just put up solar panels instead except for the fact that these waste products would be created anyways. Since these waste products are going to be created, tdp improves the overall system efficiency by recovering some of the energy that still resides in the waste matereals.

Is there any source for this material? Since there's no source cited for figures/guesses like "probably less than 1% efficient" or any indication of whose judgement it is that "As a system tdp is very inefficient", I've reverted it but placed it here to see if anything can sourced and salvaged. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:05, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

My recollection it that photosynthesis is ~2% efficient at turning sunlight into chemical energy. Going from plants to turkey to hydrocarbon fuels seems like it could easily lose another 50% of that. The point that the turkey guts--or whatever--exist, and have to be disposed of in some cost-effective way is a good one. At a profit for preference, or failing that at the least net cost.

—wwoods 00:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

It takes energy to make solar panels too, you have to dig up the sand, melt it, refine it, dope it, crystalize it, solder it, ship it to its destination. All that was driving the universe towards heat death, and inefficient to boot. TANSTAAFL. Efficient would say just compost the waste and use it to grow more feed and then put the chickens on treadmills :-). Actually, I have a point; energy efficiency usually has to do with recovery of stored potential. Solar cells you are putting most of the stored potential in when you melt the silicon, and, of course, neglecting that, they look really efficient, as if they were converting 20% of the incident light to energy. Over their lifetime they decay; I don't know what their net cost/yield ratio actually is currently -- a decade ago they were a net energy loss over their lifetime when you accounted for the energetic cost of producing them. If these TDP systems are cheap to repair and run a long time, and you don't care about the investment in making chicken guts (which came from the sun in the first place), they are probably very good in terms of yield, and isn't that what people are going to be interested in (as long as what you are wasting by being inefficient is sunlight and its not running out)? --71.49.193.211 08:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• The efficiency of the system depends upon the definition of "system". At present TDP is being used as a waste-processing or recycling method, so comparisons should be of the waste system alternatives. If TDP were proposed as a fuel production system being fed from crops grown for the purpose, then a wider analysis would be needed. If TDP was going to process material on asteroids, then different types of analysis would be needed. (SEWilco 14:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC))
• An efficiency estimate also can not be compared to an efficiency which is based upon different concepts. Coal is more efficient than wood when based upon coal being an existing raw material which can be easily mined. The efficiency of burning wood is high compared to coal when based upon the time required to grow plants and prepare a crop of wood versus coal. The efficiency of plants at converting sunlight may be low (also dependent upon whether you're measuring all light striking an acre or only photons striking a certain molecule), but the Sun's efficiency at delivering sunlight to plants on Earth is much worse. (SEWilco 14:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC))

On the subject of using TDP as a fuel production system rather than a way to wring the remaining energy from waste products, I wonder if you combine it with the algae production that the University of New Hampshire proposes: [6]. At up to 20,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre/year potential output, could you feed those products into TDP to get oil? It would probably be more efficient to just use it as diesel, but by making normal crude out of it you could get gasoline also. --JSleeper 04:01, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

50% oils? Interesting. Using a biological process to create TDP feedstock is an obvious design, particularly as TDP can process sewage. Sewage is mostly water, but using it as fertilizer to grow a crop could increase the value of recovered materials. Algae is sometimes used in sewage processing, but the UofNH study focused on salt water conditions. We'll have to see what is done before we have more to report in the article. (SEWilco 16:23, 26 July 2005 (UTC))

Tax credit

Apparently thermal depolymerization now has the tax credit.

http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=829&whichpage=34

I haven't put this in the article because it's not a direct source, it's just someone mentioning it on a forum, and the original source is a 1700 page bill that I have no ability to examine myself. Can anyone confirm it? Ken Arromdee 07:58, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

There has been some sort of related alteration. Energy Policy Act of 2005 SEC. 1346. RENEWABLE DIESEL. It basically adds "and renewable diesel" to existing biodiesel credit, and specifically defines that as being diesel from thermal depolymerization. The credit is $1 for renewable diesel instead of $0.50. I haven't looked at the results of the changes to see what limits were changed. (SEWilco 20:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC))

Profitability

Newsday article cited was published on June 7, 2004 Monday. Compare this with the report in the February 2005 issue of Fortune Small Business. Also note that the numbers in FSB do not include the costs of running the new control equipment that went into operation this past summer. --Xlation 19:14, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The Newsday article said the plant was profitable. The phrasing I used in the article does not state it presently is profitable (we don't know that). That was before the numbers in FSB, which assume only turkey waste is being processed. If this turkey waste is what was being used before Feb 2005, apparently the plant has been profitable despite those numbers. Or else something not in FSB was preventing expenses from exceeding income. The plant can produce something called crude oil #2 and #4; the closest industry terms seem to be fuel oil #2 (diesel fuel) and #4 (residual fuel oil), but without knowing the ratio of each we can't estimate market value. A press release mentioned that non-turkey waste is also being processed, further demonstrating that our trying to duplicate the plant's accounting is futile. (SEWilco 19:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC))

This is listed under "current status" can you cite a source that says they are currently selling oil at 10% under the price of quivalent oil and selling it at a profit? I did a search on Lexis and I couldn't find such a reference. Also, if FSB pegs the cost at $80.00 per barrel the ratio of #2 to #4 fuel oil is not important unless either is selling over $80 per barrel. --Xlation 19:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

If they were selling it at a profit at a time they reportedly were paying for turkey waste, and when the price of oil was less, then what is wrong with saying that they have made a profit? Particularly as we know they're processing material other than turkey waste so cash flow estimates are increasingly ambiguous. If they're not making money, someone will publish when they shut down. As I earlier noted, #2 oil is over $80/barrel now. I also suspect that because they're producing methane that they have plenty of energy for the thermal oxidizer and scubber; I haven't seen mention of selling methane yet (is there a flare tower burning off the stuff?). (SEWilco 03:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC))

CWT had production costs of $80/barrel in January before added controls. The current market price for #2 fuel oil is around $74/barrel and the cost of gasoline and residual oil is less. Perhaps this is why ConAgra recently ended its partnership agreement with CWT. If we are to compare production costs with market prices we need to include transportation, marketing, and all the other non-production overhead. According to ABC News "the newest numbers from the second quarter of this year show Exxon Mobil with a 32 percent increase in earnings over this time last year"--Exxon is not making record profits by selling oil at (or very near) their production costs. Regarding the scrubbers, even if they can burn Methane, they must still offset the capital costs, maintenance, electricity, Ects. All of that aside, inferring CWT is profitable because they are currently operating is simply an unwarranted assumption, never mind that FSB reported "CWT is staying afloat, thanks to a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy." --Xlation 15:08, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the #2 price has dropped since the 8/12/05 figures which were earlier reported.[7] Do you have a source for transportation, marketing, and all the other non-production overhead? (SEWilco 17:43, 24 August 2005 (UTC))

The company keeps its operating costs and revenue projections confidential, but the FAQ on the company website [8] responds to the question “Is it profitable” by saying “The plant is still in the startup phase, but we expect to meet our projections when the plant is operating at full capacity.” (Elsewhere it says its design capacity is 500 barrels/day—more than double its current production.) So, the short answer appears to be at best “Not yet.” In response to the question “Is the plant economically viable?” The FAQ says in part “We are counting on legislative assistance in the form of production tax credits.” When asked about revenue from other materials, they say they “are in negotiations with potential customers that will determine the actual revenues for the various materials.” The company claims that it has produced revenue, but it does not claim that it has ever been profitable. It does not even say it expects to be profitable when it operates at full capacity—it says it hopes to achieve its projections and that it is counting on production tax credits. While H.R.6 (the energy bill) created a tax credit for renewable diesel fuel beginning next year, this credit is for the use of ASTM diesel not production of #2 distillate. We'll see if CWT issues a press release claiming it will make them profitable, but my back of the envelope calculations suggest the credit is not enough to make them competitive with conventional extraction any time soon. --Xlation 14:58, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

That's kind of apples and oranges, isn't it? You're comparing the cost competitiveness of a dinky pilot plant that produces a few thousand barrels per year vs. market prices for oil from massive refineries that produce millions of barrels per year. The real question is what would the numbers look like if a TDP operation were scaled up to the size of a typical petroleum refinery.

Actually, because the TDP plant produces oil industry materials then both are in the same market. Basically TDP only makes a profit on #2 if the price for #2 in the market is higher than what it costs to produce #2 with TDP. At present the oil industry produces a much larger amount of #2 distillate than TDP so TDP is profitable only as long as the oil industry's price for #2 is sufficiently high. If TDP is used to produce enough #2 to affect market prices then the analysis becomes more complex. However, also notice that the preceding discussion was focused on only using turkey waste at a known cost, but the Carthage plant has also been using other materials and trying to analyze the current cost becomes more difficult without knowing the confidential details. (SEWilco 06:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC))

Dead link report

The external link to the itcnet.org PDF file appears to be dead. --JSleeper 03:15, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Output numbers don't add up

From the first sentence in the "Carthage plant output" section:

The yield from one ton of turkey waste is 600 pounds petroleum, 100 pounds butane/methane, and 60 pounds minerals.

Right. That adds up to 760 pounds. A ton is 2000 pounds (assuming we're talking US, not metric, here, since we've got pounds rather than kilograms). Where'd the other 1240 pounds go?

I'm assuming it's probably water, since it seems like a fairly reasonable assumption that water comprises a similar portion (by mass) of a turkey as it does a human. Can anyone confirm this? And if so, would you be so kind as to add it to the article? I have a feeling I'm not the first person to wonder where that extra 1200+ pounds went.--chris.lawson 01:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I also assume much of the weight is water, but I haven't seen that mentioned by someone who knows the details of the process. Perhaps they don't count water as a "yield", or they can't count it because it is lost; they might release steam rather than expend energy and equipment to cool it to water. (SEWilco 02:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC))

My understanding is that the steam is recycled to provide heat (and water, of course) for the reaction chambers. --Scott McNay 15:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Broken sites?

The links to Changing World Technologies and Renewable Environmental Solutions go to pages which only display a pretty picture. No links to any info. Are the sites requiring JavaScript or Flash? Makes them rather useless for many people. (SEWilco 05:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

Recently both back online. CWT have considerably reviewed their site; RES does not appear much changed. No access problems using Safari at least. (John of Paris 13:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC))

Changing World Technologies

Such a corny name
Scared investors far away
What a dear mistake

--Sinus 21:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox Your opinions are very nice I'm sure, but this is not a message board. If you have something constuctive to contribute to the article, go ahead and say it, but this isn't a place to randomly talk about your thoughts on the issue.

CLawson: While this is utterly irrelevant, it is bad form to delete talk messages right away. Just wait a month and then delete it. SnowFire 19:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Reccomended Edits

for an editing course i looked at this article to determine which edits it needed, here are the suggestions i came up with. Recommended Changes

The document should be edited in the following order of importance.

1) Content completeness 2) Fact checking 3) Referencing 4) Organization 5) Style 6) Proofreading

The first action I recommend is to ensure the article is content complete. The three sections; advantages, potential sources of waste, and limitations, are too short to stand on their own and need to either be expanded or converged. The history section needs a better account of the path to break-even and viability. The similar processes section is inaccurate and needs to either be deleted or changed into a useful discussion of the different types of thermal depolymerization. I would also fact check the existing information and add references where needed.

Next I would edit the article for organization and style. The section on limitations should follow advantages. The section on smell complaints needs to be clearer that the plant has been shut down twice. Long sentences need to be edited, prose needs to be untangled. The hyperlinks need to be edited for relevancy and consistency. The section headings need to be edited for better document navigation; headings such as “Feedstocks and outputs with thermal depolymerization” should be changed to simply “Reactants and products.” Jargon terms need to either be explained, hyperlinked, or deleted. Lastly, I would proofread the document for spelling and grammar errors. Dougmwne 15:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)Doug

A link just added

This text was just added:

For a discussion on the economic viability of this process please refer to "THE UNGUARDED OPTIMISM OF THE GUARDIAN" http://www.members.aol.com/optjournal/tdp.doc

It appears to be a very specific response to a scenario presented in the 22 May 2003 Guardian, which isn't referenced in this article. As such I don't see any particular relevance to including it. I'm moving the link here in case anyone sees any useful facts in there to write about. Bryan 03:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Name Change

According to http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-06/features/anything-oil/ , Changing World Technologies is not referring to it as Thermal Conversion Process. The article should be updated to reflect this, and with new information from this updated source. EdgeOfEpsilon 05:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Cannot verify because it's a dead link. David spector (talk) 18:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed from article

"_ A newcommer to the field as reported by Greenwire is Green Power Inc of Issaquah Washington. On July 25th 2006, they held a public demonstration of their patened depolymerization process in Tacoma WA. Their process uses "an aluminum-based catalyst which when heated, changes from an inert compound to an aggressive decompositon agent". They say their inputs are from trash composed of any material except, metal, rock, dirt and glass. They are planning to build a new plant in Tacoma Washington that will produce 10,000 liters of what they call "NanoDiesel" per hour._"

-- Ec5618 07:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Table/text discrepancy

The table shows the percentages available from turkey offal, and the text lists the quantities derived from a ton of turkey waste (which I presume is the same as turkey offal). However, the numbers don't add up the same; 39% of a ton (2000 pounds) is 780 pounds of oil, not the 600 pounds listed, unless "oil" and "petroleum" have different meanings. The other figures differ similarly. --Scott McNay 16:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm tempted to question this whole article.

There are some things that really are making me skeptical to this article. For one, it never explains how thermal depolymerization (TD) is any different than hydrous pyrolysis. Also the terms thermal depolymerization, thermochemical conversion and thermal conversion process are so overly broad names that I really doubt anyone, except Changing World Technologies (CWT) and friends, use them to refer to this exact process. This whole article seems like something cooked together by reading press releases from CWT. As far as I can see this company should be mentioned with one sentence under "examples of working scale plants" or similar.

Now if you try to google for thermal depolymerization you'll quickly realize that there is not much info about this process except from CWT. That's because other companies normally call this process for hydrous pyrolysis or hydrolysis (possibly specifying it by calling it organic hydrolysis or similar). As such this article should be about the general principle. CWT might have some minor enhancements to the process, but they are never mentioned in this article, and so I have a hard time seeing why the company should be mentioned so much.

To in the interest of being encyclopedic, I think we should either generalize this article and remove what is specific to CWT, or we should rename the article to Thermal depolymerization by Changing World Technology (just an example) and make sure we specify that thermal depolymerization is a name for a commercialized example of hydrous pyrolysis used by Changing World Technology.

I realize that what I'm being very skeptic here. But I am afraid that the combination of wiki + a highly profiled company + a lot of idealism might have created an entry that never should have been. --Tunheim 16:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the terminology is part of the problem. Without knowing enough details about the process it is hard to know if this process is similar enough to hydrous pyrolysis to confirm that the two terms refer to the same process. (SEWilco 18:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC))

If this is a general term used for a well documented process (which it should be in order to include it in an encyclopedia), then it shouldn't prove too difficult to find this information. On the other hand, if this term (and article) documents CWTs TD then naturally we are at their mercy to find any documentation. --Tunheim 07:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

An example of a similar "invented term" is Reverse Polymerization Process. This is the same as microwave induced/assisted pyrolysis, but markedet by EWMC (http://www.ewmc.com) --Tunheim 11:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the proprietary CWT process should be it's own article, as there are specifics to what they do there that are available (though from CWT) and that what they do is sufficiently separate from the hydrous pyrolysis stuff to be a related article, but not subsummed within it, or else the hydours pyrolysis article will end up being a new name of the same "thermal depolymerization" article. 141.174.95.231 01:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that an article clearly marked as "CWT TDP" (or something similar) would have a very desirable lightning-rod-effect, avoiding other articles being cluttered with CWT specific material. However I'm not so sure that "what they do is sufficiently separate from the hydrous pyrolysis" to require it's own article. I have to admit that everything I've read so far indicates that the GWT-process is a fairly generic hydrous pyrolysis. --Tunheim 08:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I question the objectivity of the article.

• How many of the figures given in the article have been verified by independent studies?
• How many of the references in the article - particularly the favourable ones - trace back to the company, and how many of them are independent?

Some investigation of all the references is needed here. It is not uncommon for an interesting press release to spread from one place to another with the sources referring to each other, but the ultimate source is a press release or two from the company responsible. If all of the references ultimately prove to be traceable back to the company without any independent and objective studies that verify the figures, then the whole article is of dubious value.

I have now seen this particular process described in four locations and all of them appear to cite sources from the company with little objective scrutiny of the claims. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 05:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge into hydrous pyrolysis and hydrolysis

As discussed earlier this article deals with a label that one company has coined to distinguish itself from generic varieties of the process. The generic process is interesting, but the label of this company is not especially noteworthy. For details see Talk:Thermal depolymerization#I'm tempted to question this whole article. --Tunheim 11:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, the hydrous pyrolysis is a stub. If a merge is going to be done, it's information should be put into another article, and then a redirect made. Second, hydrolysis is a full fledged article, but it does not approach the issue from the same perspective this article does. The Hydrolysis article is a discussion of the general chemistry involved, and is written at a "high-school chemistry" level. However, ALL the hydrolysis article discusses is the chemical process. "If you have X chemical and do Y with it, you get Z chemical out." On the other hand, the thermal depolymerization article discusses a patented, proprietary process which includes hydrolysis, then goes beyond that in discussing the actual methodology of the process and the results with typical inputs. This is an entirely different thing. "Take chicken guts and other nasty crap and chop it all up real fine, then add water, a good amount of heat and pressure, wait a bit, and you get these kinds of oils, some methane, some butane, and some carbon you can burn like coal. Oh - you also get an absolutely ASTOUNDING stink." In short, one is a discussion of chemistry, the other is a discussion of manufacturing process and it's results. It would be better to have the thermal depolymerization article say something along the lines of "creates oil using a process of hydrolysis" in it's opening paragraph. Note also that the hydrolysis article points to THIS article as an example of the chemical process in production use. Xaa 18:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced the smell is actually an issue (or at least, that any smell has to do with the process itself, rather than coming from the input materials, which certainly seems to be the case in Carthage), but that's not really relevant ;) I completely agree with Xaa -- this article discusses an industrial process from an industrial standpoint, while hydrolysis discusses a chemical process from a chemical standpoint.--chris.lawson 19:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Why are we so complacent?

There may some need for links to the litigation in the United States and how it influences businesses.--Jackkalpakian 23:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Please clarify. Why would litigation have to do with this article? I see no obvious connection. And who, exactly, is complacent? I'm not. David spector (talk) 18:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Smells

Is there any information available about what the actual source of the smells is? Perhaps if residents were encouraged to prosecute the actual producer of the smells, it would eliminate the source of the complaints, which are apparently in error, once and for all... Zaphraud 19:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I was so excited back in early 2003

When I read the article "Anything Into Oil" in Discover magazine back in early 2003, I was so excited. Soon they would build all these other plants all over the country, we would have a way to safely dispose of all of our sewage, garbage, and agicultural waste, and we would no longer have to import oil from hostile nations.

But here it is all these years later, and how many barrels of oil are they producing each day? A few hundred? A few thousand? Nothing of significance. Nothing close to the tens of millions that was supposed to happen by now. I'm starting to wonder if this is all just a giant fraud.

I know the 2006 update said the cost was $80 per barrel instead of the original $15. But with oil now around $100, if these articles were really true, we wouldn't be importing any oil at all, because we would be making it all ourselves.

I am disappointed that it now seems that this whole thing is a sham.

Grundle2600 03:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

not a sham, don't be too discouraged, but developing a new industrial process takes more time and more effort than everyone thinks it should. In addition, they seem to have made some business decisions to go slow, and not expand into general garbage useage just yet. (full disclosure I work for a landfill that would be VERY interested in using this technology). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Grundle2600 (talk) 20:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There can't be enough waste generated by each individual consumer to generate the amount fuel used by each consumer to completely eliminate imports. Sure, landfills could be emptied, but those would peak and eventually decline. ellwoodcty —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.235.2.79 (talk) 01:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this process will not eliminate the use of fossil derived oil products. It can reduce the use of them (possibly substantially). My view is that every little bit helps. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and a reduction in landfills would be in itself a wonderful thing; some localities (New York City, Rio de Janeiro) have repeatedly run out of landfill space and resorted to ever more expensive solutions. I say this not to discuss the issue but to recommend revising the article to reflect mankind's increasing need for effective recycling. I also point out that other large-scale industrial processes have gotten established in under 6 years. There must be a particular set of problems for TDP--why not include them in the article? David spector (talk) 13:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Debunking section

I don't like how it seemed to be shoehorned in. Either make a proper "Criticisms" section or don't add little paragraphs like that. Adam850 (talk) 05:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Which part of the turkey is debunk? I didn't know it had to be removed during depolymerization.  :-) -- SEWilco (talk) 16:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The following text in the debunking section was removed from the article because it needs reliable sources. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A prominent recycling chemist is highly skeptical of CWT's claims.  See here.

Lack of references

Following the earlier doubts raise about the objectivity of this article, I too have some doubts. The article lacks any references to the main process. The first reference is classification of paraffins, the next are about waste generation, and most of the rest are newspaper articles about the smell. As such it seems that most of the article does not comply with wikipedia standards. For example:

• in Theory and process we have "In the method used by CWT, the water improves the heating process and contributes hydrogen to the reactions." Is this the case? no reference to back it up, and what does improves heating process mean?
  • Seems unlikely to me that water would donate hydrogen since there is no mention of oxygen in the output and since no rationale for such a reaction is provided. David spector (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Yield efficiency of 85% with turkey offal - how can this claim be accepted without a reference?
  • That is an amazing and dubious conversion efficiency; it needs a good citation. David spector (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• destruction of prions - a reasonable claim, but not substantiated
• feedstocks and outputs: -not substantiated. How can we know if these are correct?
• Carthage plant products: -not substantiated
• Advantages: neither prions nor heavy metal clams substantiated

It seems verifiable that the plant exists, and that it processes turkey offal to produce oil, but the specifics could be entirely made up. This information should not be in an encyclopedia unless it can be verified by independent sources. Stainless316 (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There is now a citation for some of the data, but it still only originates with CWT. The patent is not independent, and the article cited is much the same as the others, depending entirely on information provided by CWT and Brian Appel. I agree with previous comments that question the whole article. This has a prominent link from Biodiesel in the lead section, and has a prominence far outweighing its importance. The information seems to only originate with one source, which has been very effective at disseminating the story in the media, and then uses these media stories to justify its importance. The thermal polymerizations process has not been independently audited, and some aspects are secret or at least not discussed. There is little in the article to differentiate it from hydrolysis or other methods, except a small section differentiating it from TCP and TCC on the basis of feedstock used. If this is a new and different process, then in order to have an article on it CWT should come clean and get independent verification of how it is different (maybe some different catalyst or something?). If it is not different, then it should be included only as a section in a broader article.

Looking at the " What links here " section, there are a large number of links to thermal depolymerisation. I had a quick look at some of them. The Creutzfelt Jacob Disease repeats the unsubstantiated claim that TD destroys prions, again with no citation. Whilst it seems entirely reasonable that this treatment would destroy prions, the claim cannot be made unless it is tested, as some infectious agent may persist. Several are added onto the "see also" section of articles(e.g. Petroleum). In PVC it is said to safely and efficiently convert PVC into fuel and minerals, again with no citation. I don't think this belongs in an article on PVC, unless and until significant quantities of PVC are actually used in this way. Fertilizer says "Innovative thermal depolymerization biofuel schemes are trialling the production of byproducts with 9% nitrogen fertilizer sourced from organic waste" this time there are two citations, both to "Discover" magazine "Anything into Oil" articles, the information in which seems to come from CWT. Again, of all the things to be said about fertilizer, this is too unimportant to get a mention IMO. In Supercritical water oxidation it is said to be having some success as "partial oxidation" of wastes. This seems to contradict the article here, which states that the water adds hydrogen, which is reduction, not oxidation. Also the thermal depolymerisation is definitely not supercritical (critical point water = 374°C) so does not belong in the article. Basically, the coverage in Wikipedia promotes CWT and portrays a small company with an interesting process as a major player in a multitude of fields. Whilst the process is interesting, and of considerable importance if it is proved to work, that proof is not yet here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stainless316 (talk • contribs) 12:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

• IMO, the first step should be repairing, not eliminating this page. I agree this page needs more citations and should thusly be tagged as such. However, regarding WP:Notoriety, part of your argument for removing it, it passes the test as this subject has been part of WP for greater that two years as either a stand-alone main or subsection of other pages (like Biodiesel). I find it suspicious that this page looks a lot like a press release for a company, though I'm more concerned that many of the "negatives" that were previously part of the article are now missing. This page wasn't always like that. The lack of external verification of the process is a definite issue. If none can be found, perhaps a merger with pyrolysis or a another appropriate category would be best? TdP would need to have a subsection and pointer if the pages are merged (signposts). I'll see if I can pull a science admin into this discussion. E8 (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
• There are a number of non-numbered references which are not connected to specific items in the article. Those should be examined for which parts of the article they support. I am unable to convert the references, so y'all do it. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I have had a look at the un-numbered links. The first two are already cited, so could be deleted, the next is a further update, and I can include this with the first two as a citation. The next is a thesis on TCC, showing oil derived from pig manure. The USA Today article repeats the same sort of stuff as the Anything into Oil articles, and could probably be deleted, ar added as a second citation in the same place. Theo Asir's site report apparently shows that the plant exists, but nothing more than that, and could again probably be deleted. The Mark kawar article is cited but not linked, I would suggest deletion. The RES plant daily output was broken when I tried, but the RES page itself is interesting. It is about thermal conversion process, and seems to indicate it is the same as TdP. RES is included as an external link, so this could go also. The fortune magazine article is interesting, could be worked into the article.
• A few things. I think the topic is worthy of inclusion, but can be improved. I agree that this page looks like a press release from the company. Thermal depolymerization is the name given to this processs by CWT, It seems that the innovative bit about this process is combining the "wet" followed by the dry heating, and also that as far as I know CWT is the first, indeed only, to get this going on a production scale, and thus could be said to merit its own article. However, the article tries a bit too hard to differentiate TdP from other similar processes. It specifically mentions thermochemical conversion (TCC) and thermal conversion process (TCP). It is not correct to say that TCC only applies to manure - see [[9]]. However, the term TCC seems to be more usually applied to pyrolysis-like processes to derive oil from biomass. Thermal conversion process (TCP) is also stated as being only applied to vegetable and manure - but this seems to be contradicted by these links [[10]], [[11]]. So that section needs to be altered. TCP seems to be operated by the same people, I am not sure of the connection between TdP and TCC, but they appear to be very similar. The "dry" heating is presumably the same as pyrolysis and / or distillation - there seems to be some confusion in the avalable references. So, how could the article be improved to reflect a more objective view, what name should be given to the process? the process uses hydrolysis, but hydrolysis is too general a term, and also aspects of pyrolysis, but includes more than this. A more common term seems to be Hydrothermal Liquefaction, for example [[12]][[13]] which is obtaining oil from biomass using superheated water under pressure. It seems to be mostly applied to cellulosic type materials, often in alkaline conditions, but does not have to be exclusively so. Hydrous pyrolysis is another term used for this process [[14]]. I would suggest re-naming to Hydrothermal Liquefaction, or possible Biomass liquefaction, or Hydrous pyrolysis, including a general description of hydrothermal processes, and include TdP as one of the major commercialized application, possibly the only one? With regard to the lack of citations on TdP specifically, I suspect that they do not exist in the public domain, and thus the information on TdP should indicate that the source is CWT - e.g. CWT claim that... The existence of the other "hydrothermal" processes strengthens the article IMO by independently verifying that the underlying process is well documented. This is obviously not a trivial undertaking. I could give it a go, if this seems a reasonable solution.Stainless316 (talk) 15:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• • The proposed title hydrothermal liquefaction refers to the recovery of petrochemicals from fields that do not yield oil or natural gas through wells tapping reservoirs of these fuels. The subject of this article is the conversion of plastics (polymers) and biomass to synthetic oil or other hydrocarbon fuels. Since depolymerization usually refers to the breakdown of many plastics due to time, light, and heat accelerating their carcinogenic volatility (see also Volatile organic compounds), I agree that it is not a good name for this article. But liquefaction is also not a good name. David spector (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed alterations to "Similar processes" section

I have written a "similar processes" section which I think puts Thermal Depolymerization in context with other similar processes. It provides independent verification that this type of process is documented. here it is, I will put it in the article if there are no negative comments.

Thermal depolymerisation is similar to other processes which use superheated water as a major step in their processing to produce fuels, such as direct Hydrothermal Liquefaction and hydrous pyrolysis. Thermochemical conversion (TCC) can mean conversion of biomass to oils using superheated water, although it more usually is applied to fuel production via pyrolysis. The Thermal Conversion Process is another name for thermal depolymerisation. A company called Renewable Environmental Solutions (RES) was formed as a joint venture between ConAgra foods and CWT to operate the plant at Carthage and the name of the process was changed. Other commercial scale processes include the “SlurryCarb” process operated by EnerTech, which uses similar technology to decarboxylate wet solid biowaste, which can then be physically dewatered and used as a solid fuel called E-Fuel. The plant at Rialto is said to be able to process 683 tons of waste per day. The Hydro Thermal Upgrading (HTU) process uses superheated water to produce oil from domestic waste. A demonstration plant is due to start up in The Netherlands said to be capable of processing 64 tons of biomass (dry basis) per day into oil. Thermal depolymerisation differs in that it contains a hydrous process followed by an anhydrous cracking / distillation process.

• seems pretty good to me. Do the other companies involved in this have wikipedia articles that can be linked also? --Rocksanddirt (talk) 16:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I am removing the microwave section as this specifically states on their website [[15]] that the process does not use water. It is therefore a pyrolysis process.Stainless316 (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Advantages section

This section needs some modifications. The "recycling all fossil CO2" arguement is unrealistic requiring all energy requirements to come from fuel made from thermal depolymerisation using biomass as a feedstock. I doubt this could happen even "in theory". The comparison with synfuels is contadicted by the synfuels article, which states that fuels compatable with current engines are produced. Any comments before I make changes?Stainless316 (talk) 14:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yield and product

The yield from the table is 39% oils from turkey offal. The yield from the Current Status section is 79m3 from 270 tonnes offal plus 20 tonnes pig fat. The density is API40, which equates to 0.82 specific gravity, giving 65 tonnes from 290 tonnes, or 22.3% Should this value be in the Yield section? Also the product is described as crude oil comparable to diesel fuel. However, it is not diesel fuel, and presumably cannot be used as such. What has to be done to it to convert it diesel fuel? How much diesel do you get from it? Does the oil go as refinery feedstock? I think the "comparable with diesel fuel" creates the impression that diesel is produced (it did to me, anyway). Anyone have any information?Stainless316 (talk) 13:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Cut this bit out - put it here in case it is useful The yield from one U.S. ton (907kg) of turkey waste is 600 pounds (272 kg) (30%) petroleum, 100 pounds (45 kg) (5%) butane/methane, and 60 pounds (27 kg) (3%) minerals. In addition, the water is recycled back into the system for reuse..Stainless316 (talk) 14:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone had tried in grass?

Did anyone tried thermal depolymerization in grass? If yes, what happened?Agre22 (talk) 22:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)agre22

Talk pages are not for general discussion. They deal with improving the associated article. David spector (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

One small nitpick...

...the article says that thermal depolymerization is "not a new technology". This is a bit misleading, since you might think that people have been doing it for hundreds of years. It'd be like saying "nuclear fusion is not a new technology... the sun has been doing it for millions of years", when the implication of a "technology" is that humans do it, not that nature does it.

Otherwise, I like the article a lot: well written. The technology seems promising too (I hope).

Actually they were developing this technology for around a 100 years. However the one recent advance that makes this technology feasible is not trying to boil off the water. Instead it is pressurized and used as a catalyst, then depressurized when no longer needed.

date stamp for archiving --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Major contradiction

No WP article should contain statements which are in contradiction to each other.

This article states:

Thermal Depolymerization (TDP) is a process using hydrous pyrolysis...

it later states:

Thermal depolymerization is similar to other processes...such as...hydrous pyrolysis.

The first statement is that TDP uses hydrous pyrolysis. The second says that rather than using hydrous pyrolysis, TDP is only similar to processes using hydrous pyrolysis.

Which is it? Does TDP use hydrous pyrolysis, does it sometimes use hydrous pyrolysis, or does it never use hydrous pyrolysis?

If one of these statements is misleading, please delete it. If the grammar is misleading, then please fix the grammar. If this requires a plastics expert, let's invite one here. David spector (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

From the definition of hydrous pyrolysis, this process clearly involves it. I will remove the term hydrous pyrolysis from the similar processes section, as hydrous pyrolysis is not a process, but a reaction.Stainless316 (talk) 12:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Not just for oil

Thermal depolymerization is not just usable to get oil. According to Discover (magazine), modified versions of the process can be used to produce different minerals that can also be sold. For example, you can create hydrochloric acid from Polyvinyl chloride using a very similar process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.114.244 (talk) 16:31, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Limitations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization#Limitations states: "The process only breaks long molecular chains into shorter ones, so small molecules such as carbon dioxide or methane cannot be converted to oil through this process." TDP is not a process for creating polymers; it simply breaks polymers into small sections. Neither CO2 nor methane is a polymer (methane is a monomer).

Yours sincerely

Alan Erskine alan.erskine1@bigpond.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.188.35.7 (talk) 01:29, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• How do the statement in the page and what you're saying differ? Do you simply want more detail?--E8 (talk) 02:51, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with Alan. The text's implication is odd. Perhaps a better substitute would be: "The process is limited to creating oil by breaking long polymer chains down into shorter ones. It cannot assemble simple monomers such as carbon dioxide or methane into polymers."--JeffMDavidson 19:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JeffMDavidson (talk • contribs)