Plastic into Oil at Home !

[dennisail]

Energy consumption for the converter is decent, 1 kW/h with about 3 hour operating time and 80% efficiency.

But how much oil does it make in that time? Is the output energy of the product higher than the energy used to make the product? If so by how much? What does 80% efficiency mean in this instance?

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by dennisail

But how much oil does it make in that time? Is the output energy of the product higher than the energy used to make the product? If so by how much? What does 80% efficiency mean in this instance?

They say on the website that in 3 hours most of the conversion is finished with average efficiency of 80% across different materials.

For example:
- CD cases weighing 1 kg produce 808 g (1010 ml = 80.8%) of oil with 107 g residue.
- Artificial lawn weighing 860 g produces 380 g (475 ml = 44%) of oil with 390 g residue.
- Small toy cases weighing 600 g produce 560 g (700 ml = 93%) of oil with 40 g residue.
- Food plastic bags and straws weighing 400 g produce 412 g (515 ml = 82.4%)of oil with 103 g residue.

More examples are listed on page http://blest.co.jp/s-4english.html

So no, it would not produce enough to run itself... Solar panels?

[hellosailor]

There have been any number of "synfuel" companies and projects in the last decade. Using anything from coal and wood (like Hitler did) to turkey offal (as an American copany is doing, or was doing, in conjunction with a poultry firm) the problem always comes back to cost.

Last I'd heard the processes were economically feasible at a "gasoline" cost of $5/gallon and since gasoline still sells worldwide for typically $3-4 per gallon, these plants are not economically feasible. If someone puts up a billion dollars and puts a big plant online, the Saudis can drop their prices back to $2.50 a gallon, bankrupt 'em, and then buy them out for a dime on the dollar. That's how the game is played.

And yes, I said gasoline WORLDWIDE is $3-4 a gallon. If you're paying $10 a gallon someplace in the EU or Scandinavia, you're paying $6 in taxes on top of the $4 for gasoline, don't confuse the two just because your government taxes your fuel purchase more than some others do.

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Last I'd heard the processes wre economically feasible at a "gasoline" cost of $5/gallon and since gasoline still sells worldwide for typically $3-4 per gallon, these plants are not economically feasible. If someone puts up a billion dollars and puts a big plant online, the Saudis can drop their prices back to $2.50 a gallon, bankrupt 'em, and then buy them out for a dime on the dollar. That's how the game is played.

But just imagine... some charity could deposit small units together with a solar panel setup in some villages along the shores of oceans/seas/rivers. Teach the skills needed to operate the machinery. Whatever profit villagers get from oil, petrol, gas, etc go directly to them. It'll be in their interest to turn garbage into money.

Yes, it'll be minute amounts when considering the overall scope, but every kg of plastic counts. One kilogram of plastic per day is a big volume of water bottles and bags removed from garbage dumps. It is a tiny contribution, but it's bigger than what I could contribute when I would choose to recycle a single water bottle [assuming that it actually goes to a recycling plant, of course].

[hellosailor]

"some charity could deposit small units together with "
Yes, but at 80% efficiency, the charity would be teaching the locals how to lose 20% on every dollar. And probably throwing away ten to twenty thousand dollars on each installation.
It would be far more charitable to simply adopt all those poor locals and bring them "home" to wherever the Pnzi scheme, ergh, charity was.

Spending gobs of money to provide minimal benefits is not charity, it is a way to skim money from bleeding hearts. And there are plenty of folks running schemes just like that, for that exact purpose. Sad but true.

Give me $100. I'll give you back $80, less shipping and handling and refining fees. That's what this machine will do, right now. Step up, step up, where's your money?

[captain58sailin]

A few years back, I read about a man that had a process to return used tires into green crude it made a big splash in the investment world then disappeared, just like the cold fusion generators that made a splash on Art Bell's show and they were supposed to be able to run on the waste residues from nuclear power plants and be small enough to have one for every house and the residue when they were done with the waste was supposed to be a non - toxic ash and water. I think it would be great if there is indeed some invention to produce oil from waste plastic, Nigeria is awash in it and I have been trying to think of a way to help reduce or remove it. I just wonder what happens to all these great inventions? I would buy one just to give it away so some one could start reducing the amount of loose plastic floating around in the world. I really like the idea of using solar power to run the unit, alas I believe that creating solar panels is a really toxic process as well. I still use them, I just wonder about the level of impact they have on the environment and if the many years of service life off sets the pollution factor.

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"some charity could deposit small units together with "
Yes, but at 80% efficiency, the charity would be teaching the locals how to lose 20% on every dollar. And probably throwing away ten to twenty thousand dollars on each installation.
...

I'm sorry, I'm not following your logic. Let me try to understand:

[let's exclude installation and training costs, just so I could understand]

A local goes to a garbage dump and collects 1 kg worth of plastic bottles. [S]he takes them to this machine that has a battery charged by the sun and puts 1 kg of these plastic bottles in it. Waits 3 hours and gets 800 g (about 1 litre) of oil and some residue.

They put in plastic bottles, used solar energy, and got 80% oil out of these plastic bottles. Now, this is where I am confused: you say "lose 20% on every dollar" - on what dollar?
Note that I am assuming in this example that installation and training costs were absorbed by some charity org.

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

... I just wonder what happens to all these great inventions? I would buy one just to give it away so some one could start reducing the amount of loose plastic floating around in the world. I really like the idea of using solar power to run the unit, alas I believe that creating solar panels is a really toxic process as well. I still use them, I just wonder about the level of impact they have on the environment and if the many years of service life off sets the pollution factor.

Yes, it's always hard to know if an intentionally kind deed is indeed that.

I think at this stage new technologies are not completely environmentally friendly, but it's worth bringing them to people's attention. Maybe somebody else comes up with something better? Maybe somebody will hook existing technology with something from a garbage dump and make it work even better?

But it's not only about technologies. It's about the mindset. The change in attitude happens because something comes to our attention. It happens slowly - slowing ticking until you wake up one morning and decide not to buy products with excessive packaging, or decide to reuse plastic bags, or pick up some garbage (and maybe burn it? - let's not get into greenhouse effects here, please )... Similar to choosing to walk, bike, or sail instead of using motorized transport.

Yes, no single solution will save the world for our future living, but it can be just one more "tick" in technology or mindset change.

[hellosailor]

What dollar? The claimed 80% efficiency. if the machine is 80% efficient, that means it costs $1.00 in electricity (or something, probably ignoring the cost of the machine and maintenance on it) to produce $.80 worth of oil, which supposedly will need some perhaps-non-trivial further refining, packaging, and shipping.

It doesn't matter if they get the garbage for free, if the machine still operates at 80% efficiency it is operating at a 20% loss and like all perpetual motion machines, that loss has to be made up--funded--by something.

AH, but you say it can be powered by free solar cells? No, it can't. If the solar cells are producing power, that power can still be used and sold for something. They're still glossing over the 20% loss.

This is like buying and selling carbon credits, or paying extra for biodiesel or wind power from your utility grid. All very nice IF you have the extra 20% to throw in from the start, but when you start asking where's the seed money going to come from? WHo's going to fund these machines? Who's going to repair them? And replace the solar panels that WILL be stolen from them, just like copper phone wires and power cables are stolen all around the world?

I still see a very sketchy perpetual motion machine plan. 80% efficiency means 20% loss, so however they are to be funded, someone is starting out by throwing away 20% of whatever they are "giving" the locals.

There are other ways to recycle plastic trash, pie in the sky at a 20% loss rate doesn't seem like a very good way to do anything--except skim money from well-intentioned donors who are poor at math.

[sdowney717]

Now, this is where I am confused: you say "lose 20% on every dollar" - on what dollar?

He was saying it will cost you $5 per gallon to make the plastic oil while you can buy oil from the gas station for $3 or $4, so unless your really just a green fool, no one would do that. This is part of the green energy problem, it cost much more. Governments TAX conventional energy to make GREEN energy look like a better deal.

What a shame these governments make a mess of energy policy, look at the ethanol fraud controversy.

10% E10 gasoline gives you 10% or less MPG, so YOUR NOT saving any gasoline and then E10 uses up food for fuel which drives up food costs for the poor, and uses humongous amounts of fresh water. Plus it takes a lot of chemicals and fertilizers and diesel to grow the corn. It is not green at all.

[Dkdoyle]

Originally Posted by Katiusha

Japanese company Blest came up with a converter of plastic back into oil in a table-sized unit! Š”Ž®‰ïŽÐƒuƒŒƒXƒg|»•iî•ñ@”pƒvƒ‰ƒXƒ`ƒbƒN–û‰»‘•’u | And they sell small refiners too... Imagine all those plastic strewn beaches as a source for outboard gas and inboard diesel!

Energy consumption for the converter is decent, 1 kW/h with about 3 hour operating time and 80% efficiency.

I am thinking that a combination of converter and refiner might be a very good supplement for dessalinators on the out islands. Looks like Clear Oceans Project is/will be using the same combination for North Pacific Garbage Patch. If there was a similar org that would donate units to out islands together with solar setup... I haven't done the numbers to see if it's possible, but it would be so splendid if it worked!

It always pains me to arrive in a beautiful spot that is half hidden under plastic, to see coral reefs dying entangled in plastic bags and lost fishing gear, to find half-dead fish entangled in plastic... Maybe this technology, being fairly efficient and on a portable scale, would provide a solution?

Pretty cool. We need to in-courage technology. If Steve Jobs had listened to some of these folks that only look at Roi then we wouldn't have the iPod, iPhone or iPad. Thinking outside the box is not a bad thing

[foggysail]

Originally Posted by Unicorn Dreams

Reminds me of the Japnese scientist making lunch out of feces...

UUuuugh!

[captain58sailin]

Back in the day there used to be a penny tax on return bottles, now I think it is much higher, why not use the same thinking on the plastic stuff, call it a user fee. Then ear mark the money strictly for recycling the plastic back into oil. I would bet that if we started, it wouldn't be long before some one came up with a really efficient way to recycle the plastic to actually make a profit, who knows maybe some of the chemistry majors could come up with some kind of a bio remedial injection that would start the plastic break down before it got to recycling plant that would allow it to break down in 30% less time so you would gain 10%. They already have oil eating microbes, maybe we could train them to eat plastic and excrete oil.

[perchance]

Put a 5 or 10 cent deposit on all plastic containers and the problem would be mostly (emphasis on mostly) solved.

[Katiusha]

Originally Posted by sdowney717

He was saying it will cost you $5 per gallon to make the plastic oil while you can buy oil from the gas station for $3 or $4, so unless your really just a green fool, no one would do that...

My point was that with an alternative energy setup (solar, wind, wave) provided by a charity you don't need to spend that $5 to get the oil.