Comments on: How To: Fuel Your Car With Thanksgiving Leftovers

By: brian kelley

brian kelley — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:32:53 +0000

to hell with the money we can clean the entire world with this process an stop polluting streams with sewer an stop and fills an dissassemble anthrax believe it or not an might even dissassemble radioactive waste too

By: Battlelion

Battlelion — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:36:25 +0000

Laen meant to say that oil per barrel runs at about $60 today. At that price, gas is ~$2.80/gallon. TDP produces diesel oil, supposedly, that costs ~$80/barrel. Or about 30% more than current world oil prices.

Do you think that majority of people, not to mention businesses, which will use the oil, would pay $3.5o/gal of more for gas? Voluntarily? The answer is no.

Give TDP a credit of a $1/gal and it’s somewhat equal, but as consumers the credit comes out of another one of our pockets. Either the process has to stand on it’s own two legs and be cost worthy, or we have to wait until oil is more expensive. Just like with wind, solar, etc.

By: Pointy-Hatted Geek

Pointy-Hatted Geek — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:34:00 +0000

Runs what?

By: Laen

Laen — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:38:43 +0000

Right now the oil from TDP costs about $80/barrel, whereas oil pulled from the earth runs

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:19:11 +0000

I first heard about thermal depolymerization more than 5 years ago. I have followed the company off and on since then.

At the time, they had a small-scale working reactor that could process anything, just as advertised. The turkey plant was their first large-scale attempt. If that worked well, they had 100’s of customers waiting to buy a thermal depolymerization plant. (Eliminate the waste disposal bills and produce energy; who wouldn’t?)

Well the first trial was to take a year. That was about 4 years ago. When I last contacted them they explained that there were still some kinks to work out. I take it to mean that the project did not scale up as well as had been anticipated.

Over the years I have maintained hope for TD, but I grow more skeptical. Remember, the promise of Cold Fusion?

By: Milica

Milica — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:05:32 +0000

I remember reading the orginal Discover article. I was intrigued by it. Kudos on bringing it up in Mental_Floss. I can’t wait until we start doing something with this technology.

By: allen hott

allen hott — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:00:34 +0000

if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is!
from all the reading/studying that I have done on “making petroleum products” always claim that the cost would be much more than what we are paying today. maybe someone somewhere can tinker some more???

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:41:48 +0000

wikipedia has this to say about the tax credit:

“A biofuel tax credit of roughly $1 per US gallon (26 ¢/L) on production costs was not available because the oil produced did not meet the definition of “biodiesel” according to the relevant American tax legislation. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically added thermal depolymerization to a $1 renewable diesel credit, which became effective at the end of 2005.”

i’m hoping that’s true…

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:15:50 +0000

I actually did hear about this a long time ago, and I still don’t understand why a plant has’t replaced every single waste processing facility in the nation. It is the only means of treating solid waste that destroys all organic life — even down to viruses like HIV.

Now I know why it hasn’t spread like wildfire — Congress is full of idiots. (Well, we already knew that.) Hopefully if the information becomes more widespread the technology will too.