Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:10 pm Post subject: The turkey parts plant
I just got my April Discover. The cover blurb says, "Anything into oil! It works: Recycled Waste Is the The Future of Fuel."
Yup, it's an article about that turkey waste plant. (They are now calling the process "thermal conversion," not "thermal depolymerization.") The actual article is not as optimistic as the cover blurb. Hopefully Discover will put it in the public section of their Web site when the April issue goes online.
Quote:
...Appel looks wearier than he did when Discover broke the news about his company's technology (see "Anything Into Oil," May 2003). Back then, when the process was still experimental, Appel predicted that the Carthage plant would crank out oil for about $15 a barrel and rack up profits from day one. But the plant was delayed by construction problems, and federal subsidies were postponed. After it started up, a foul odor angered town residents, leading to a temporary shutdown in December 2005. Production costs turned out to be $80 a barrel, meaning that for most of the plant's working life Appel has lost about $40 per barrel. As recently as last April, he feared the whole operation might implode.
But he's since gotten $100 million in private funding and $17 million in government grants. He hopes to install more scrubbers to deal with the odor problem and restart soon, hopefully actually turning a profit this time.
Why has it been so difficult? "Basically, everything has been more complex and expensive than anyone guessed."
He claims that without government subsidies for the oil and gas industry, consumers would pay $15/gallon for gasoline, so he sees his government subsidies as just leveling the playing field.
However, he is planning to decamp for Europe. Europe is much more generous with the subsidies. Plus, they are paranoid about mad cow disease, and thermal conversion is the only practical way of dealing with prion-infected carcasses.
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 251 Location: Siberia of Canada
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:24 am Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Quote:
Why has it been so difficult? "Basically, everything has been more complex and expensive than anyone guessed."
I figured that all the predicted costs of producing oil alternatives should be multiplied by at least a factor of three to get the true costs. For example, the synthetic oil from the tar sands was supposed to cost $12/barrel, but its long term cost will be definitely above $36/barrel.
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:33 am Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
I find this business about odours strange. The turkey plant itself cannot be exactly odourless (I recently saw a comment that the Butterball plant "smells like Thanksgiving all the year round"), so how does the TCP plant make this worse? Whatever the odour of the plant (and how do you describe a smell - heard it's something like singed hair), the stink of politically motivated put-down is what pervades my delicate nostrils where I'm standing.
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:03 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
JohnOfParis wrote:
I find this business about odours strange. The turkey plant itself cannot be exactly odourless (I recently saw a comment that the Butterball plant "smells like Thanksgiving all the year round"), so how does the TCP plant make this worse? Whatever the odour of the plant (and how do you describe a smell - heard it's something like singed hair), the stink of politically motivated put-down is what pervades my delicate nostrils where I'm standing.
So you see a political conspiracy? Is that republican or democratic. Or is it Green? Even garden-fresh turkey guts contain turkey crap and that stinks. TDP is a high-tech entropic joke. The stink coming out of this plant is more economic and job-related then political. The investors and staff need to prolong the scam for their investment. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:29 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
FWIW, the Discover article describes the smell as a combination of rotting corpses, fried liver, and feces.
All parties seem to agree that perhaps building the plant in the middle of town was Not A Good Idea. There's no reason it can't be further out, where the odor wouldn't be as much of an issue. The turkey parts and the oil are both trucked some distance anyway.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 7021 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
The plant is about 35 miles from here, near the Big town where we shop from time to time. It was built in and old industrial area – perhaps partly in existing buildings.
Not only is it in town, its on the upwind side – and it does stink.
I’d be mad too.
That is one of the things that may trouble many of the alternative processes – infrastructure. 40 years ago it cost good money to build the roads, power transmission, water, sewer and all. But today the costs are huge due to regulation and labor primarily but also raw materials that are vastly more expensive.
Don’t get me wrong; health and safety rules are a good thing. Many of the great engineering feats of the past were achieved only through great sacrifice of life and limb. I guess that is one of the results of the diminishing returns of increasing complexity; everyone wants to be a software coder and no one wants to hang from a harness 300 feet in the air. I know I don’t.
Pstarr is probably right about the money losing aspect, but again, we all asked for rules governing everything right down to the height of our keyboards to avoid unnecessary carpal tunnel injury in our stressful coding jobs and indirect lighting so we don’t injure our eyesight struggling away for the evil slavemasters. The result of all the rules is the near impossibility of building just about anything without going bankrupt.
I guess ya gotta be careful what ya picket for… _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3912 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Acording to Carthage Press
the plant is now back in full production mode with ozone generators being used to scrub the air clean of odor's. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 2888 Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:32 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Pops wrote:
but also raw materials that are vastly more expensive.
Raw materials are a lot cheaper today than they were in the old days when you compensate for purchasing power parity. Wages have risen a lot faster than the price of most raw materials.
For example, during the last oil crisis Sweden spent 20 % of it's export revenues on oil. Today it's like 5 %.
The big cost jumps for infrastructure is due to regulation and higher wages. But if you streamline regulation you can reduce costs a lot. Compare the insane construction and operation regulation (and the following insane costs) of the US nuclear industry during the 70's and 80's with the sweet new system. _________________ Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Joined: Aug 13, 2005 Posts: 603 Location: BlueRidgeVA
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Eli wrote:
The reports I have read said that it smells like death, or that it smells like roadkill except more intense and it does not go away.
I had a personal tour of a turkey processing plant in Colorado. The smell was pretty bad. My main memory of the tour was of immigrant workers on the assembly line who were wearing yellow raincoats with Souwester style headgear to protect themselves from the flinging turkey blood and grease. Everything was greasy slick- floor, equipment, and personnel.
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 7:10 pm Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Nice to see all this reaction especially from those from those living in the area. The worst thing about this business is the weight of rumour that's building up.
You see I don't know what it smells like - it's not so bad as to reach Paris (even if we are downwind). What I mean to say is that it's very difficult for an outsider to get solid information on the process and its implications apart from CWT's glossy blurb and Discovery's journalese.
It's still not clear to me what stink is actually being described. For instance what DesertBear2 describes are the conditions found in any knacker's yard. This is nothing new to me : my dad was a butcher and he used give me the job of taking the bones and fat every week to the local knacker's yard. Horrible place and dangerous - I used to have to take some cotton waste with me to wipe the grease off my shoes before driving off because I couldn't keep my feet on the pedals.
So let's get this straight, the two plants, Butterball and TCP are in separate locations (this I have no way of knowing) so we're sure that the stink comes/came from the pre-scrubber TDP/TCP plant?
A proper assessment of this process from multiple points of view is becoming really urgent. Neglecting this would be nothing short of criminal in view of what they promise. What really makes this process interesting is the waste disposal aspect - even more important in my view than its potential as an energy source. In Europe, all they can talk about is incineration and land fill - not real solutions. I realise that am diverging from the subject of our debate here, but it is essential not to lose sight of this potential dual benefit from the TDP process as both the issues it claims to address are of immediate importance (we're talking about today, not tomorrow); therefore as many people, as possible should be made aware of its existence - not the case at present, I've never met anybody among my acquaintances who had ever heard of the process before I started talking about it. And as I just said, rumour abounds.
In passing I would add that if there were any way of contacting the inventor Paul Baskis, I for one would be very interested in his views on the present situation.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 7021 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:39 am Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Starvid wrote:
Raw materials are a lot cheaper today than they were in the old days when you compensate for purchasing power parity.
You may be right; I have no source to argue from except my own experience with building materials. Inflation is a funny thing.
Starvid wrote:
But if you streamline regulation you can reduce costs a lot.
I agree, we will probably "streamline" many regulations before it's all over.
JOP
Yes Colorado is far away from Missouri – maybe even farther today after last nights tornadoes.
TD is basically throwing every scrap of leftover turkey guts and whatever into a big pressure cooker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization - a much different smell than butchering. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:04 am Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
Quote:
FWIW, the Discover article describes the smell as a combination of rotting corpses, fried liver, and feces.
Argh, you guys are making me hungry! _________________ "If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:15 am Post subject: Re: The turkey parts plant
They aren't just using turkey parts. Turns out, you can't just throw anything into the mix and get a usable product. That was something they had to learn by experience. They've got a carefully tweaked recipe now. For example, turkey parts are not enough to produce good oil. They are also importing pig fat from hog-processing plants and using that.
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TDP is a high-tech entropic joke. The stink coming out of this plant is more economic and job-related then political. The investors and staff need to prolong the scam for their investment.
ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
