I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.
...
As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas.
...
Hawk-10 can extract enough oil and gas from the left-over fluff to run the Hawk-10 itself and a number of other machines used by [recyclers].
Because it makes extracting reusable metal more efficient and evaporates water from autofluff, the Hawk-10 should also reduce the amount of end material that needs to be deposited in landfill sites.
New Scientist also has a feature on the looming energy crisis _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Woohoo! So we have more gas and diesel to drive to the store to buy plastic that was shipped by diesel. Genius plan. Could this be the perpetual motion device? _________________ I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God. - Rabia
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:01 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
lol, first response is jokes about perpetual motion.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that improving recycling techniques means that "WERE SAVED!". But come on, there is a massive amount of plastic crap that is currently just being dumped into land fills. Isn't the ability to efficiently free the hydrocarbons from what would otherwise be wasted, well, a good thing?
Or is it a stupid plan to try and reduce the waste that we generate?
Improvements in recycling technology are of vital importance. It's about waste reduction, not trying to fuel society on it's waste products. Duh! _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3884 Location: over here
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:30 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
if it can be done using less energy than the end product contains, it could have some potential. The biggest problem however is how to collect all the plastics from the garbage? I'm not sure that can be overcome in terms of energy. _________________ "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."
Joined: May 06, 2006 Posts: 873 Location: Tustin, CA
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:53 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Bas wrote:
if it can be done using less energy than the end product contains, it could have some potential. The biggest problem however is how to collect all the plastics from the garbage? I'm not sure that can be overcome in terms of energy.
It will probably be called Slave or "Convict Labor". _________________ Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 386 Location: Holland, Belgica Foederata (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands)
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:21 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Plastic is a good fuel. In Europe they don't dump plastic in landfill sites, but use it to make electricity. The US is building up a strategic fuel reserve by burying their combustable waste in landfill sites. In a few years from now they will dig it up again to use as fuel. It should be wise to start storing combustable wastes here in Europe again as well.
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:45 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Anything that can buy us more time to switch as much of the economy as possible to renewables is a good thing. This sounds like it has the potential to do that.
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:01 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
ElijahJones wrote:
The technology is cool, using tuned EM waves. But you know it takes energy to create those EM waves. So this next gen oil leftover stuff is going to be a net energy loser if the grades the material came from were net energy losers. The equations don't balance.
Wait until they learn how to fine 'toon' visible light and make us all into a tasty green goo.
What do you mean 'the equations don't balance'? It takes a smaller amount of energy to power the microwave than the resulting energy recovered from the recycled material. This is why scrap recyclers are planning on adopting this technology; they can zap the scrap that would otherwise be useless and get enough power to not only power the microwave, but also a bunch of other machines in their operation.
This provides more power than it consumes, it greatly reduces waste/landfill, and it enables the energy positive recycling of materials that were previously difficult to recycle.
Bas wrote:
The biggest problem however is how to collect all the plastics from the garbage?
In terms of general waste, that's easy - make people separate the plastics they throw out into separate bins. It's already done all over the world, including the city I live in. It's very easy and takes no energy. In terms of more complex waste with integrated plastic and metals - this technology separates them for us. Zap a tyre and you get the raw materials and hydrocarbons separated in usable forms, and the same deal with wiring, or anything else that contains plastics and metals. It's not like someone has to sit there and sift through mountains of garbage to find recyclable material.
AndyK wrote:
Anything that can buy us more time to switch as much of the economy as possible to renewables is a good thing. This sounds like it has the potential to do that.
Considering the mountains of existing waste containing immeasurable bound hydrocarbons, you could be right. This could possibly offer a large new source of energy.
Though it's still a new technology, and is not proven commercially yet. While it will likely be a boon to any scrap yard or recycling centre, it may still prove to be infeasible as a substitute for regular diesel fuel due to costs. We can't really say for certain yet, though it does look promising. Seems logical that running a microwave is going to be cheaper than extracting/transporting/refining crude, but I guess we can't say with any real certainty yet. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:20 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
once again Omnitir, for a self-proclaimed smart guy, you display a complete and systematic lack of human-scale, earthly commonsence (or if you prefer I couch that in academic language you may understand---. . a complete and systematic lack of thermodynamic contemplation)
Plastic junk is buried in landfills next to all sorts of non-plastic stuff such as prehistoric hotdogs, dog carcasses, and even dog dollies. Not to mention aluminum cans the bad, bad, bad, recyclers forgot. This crap would need to be dug out, trucked, separated, identified, graded, processed into fuel and then collected, containerized, shipped, distributed, and purchased by mom and the kids for their SUV.
guess what all that work requires? and I don't mean plastic bags and stuff. I mean petroleum. which is running out so there won't be any more plastic bags and garbage and stuff.
sheesh. talk about a bad eroei _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:13 am Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Ideally, if you could tune this thing right and run it off renewable power:
You could zap your local landfill at varying wavelengths to melt out the various plastics and possibly even other items. Most landfills aleady collect methane generated by the garbage, so if it is profitable, they'll do it.
of used tires at various locations across the U.S., and some of these mountains have caught fire, burning for days. EROEI calcs would have to include transportation, grinding the tires (with grinders able to deal with steel wire in "steel belted" tires. Determining the quantities of used tires available for recycling should be easy for anyone with access to tire sales statistics.
The subject research is just the single stage of - dare I call it microwave depolymerization?? - or "rendering" tires into a hydrocarbon fluid close to the molecular weight of diesel fuel.
Determining the overall practicality of the general method of the microwave process and it's EROEI requires more detailed study and research than we will find here. Sounds like a great master's or doctorate thesis subject/project for a budding scientist/engineer!
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3623 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:08 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
Was going to mention depolymerization. Sounds very similiar.
pstarr wrote:
This crap would need to be dug out, trucked, separated, identified, graded, processed into fuel and then collected, containerized, shipped, distributed, and purchased by mom and the kids for their SUV.
guess what all that work requires? and I don't mean plastic bags and stuff. I mean petroleum.
You have a petroleum powered identifier/grader? Boss!
I can see people heaping and sorting plastics, powered by food and water - the people that is - and powering one of these babies with solar/wind. 10 to 1 if the rich are still motoring 50 years from now they'll be utilizing this, the scum. Or perhaps it'll be the provenance of enlightened types who've read Heinberg's books. It's a lot more probable than said rich trying to keep the imports up from the ME, after all. Or trying to extract the dribs from Texas wellheads.
People may need those tires for, uh, cars. Although solid rubber is the way to go ultimately. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
C'mon man, who're you gonna believe?
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
TheDude wrote:
Was going to mention depolymerization. Sounds very similiar.
me too. I actually wrote it into the first draft of my above comment and then thought to myself, "does anyone actually buy that turkey sh$t any more?" And I answered, "Nah."
Dave wrote:
Determining the overall practicality of the general method of the microwave process and it's EROEI requires more detailed study and research than we will find here. Sounds like a great master's or doctorate thesis subject/project for a budding scientist/engineer!
Dave, there really is no reason to spend our last days on the petroleum teat analyzing its whithered desiccated state. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 1001 Location: Down Under
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: Re: Hawk10 - microwave turns plastic back to oil
pstarr wrote:
once again Omnitir, for a self-proclaimed smart guy, you display a complete and systematic lack of human-scale, earthly commonsence (or if you prefer I couch that in academic language you may understand---. . a complete and systematic lack of thermodynamic contemplation)
Plastic junk is buried in landfills next to all sorts of non-plastic stuff such as prehistoric hotdogs, dog carcasses, and even dog dollies. Not to mention aluminum cans the bad, bad, bad, recyclers forgot. This crap would need to be dug out, trucked, separated, identified, graded, processed into fuel and then collected, containerized, shipped, distributed, and purchased by mom and the kids for their SUV.
guess what all that work requires? and I don't mean plastic bags and stuff. I mean petroleum. which is running out so there won't be any more plastic bags and garbage and stuff.
sheesh. talk about a bad eroei
But you are talking about getting the plastics from possibly the worst source available - existing garbage landfill. What about the other sources? Throughout the world there a giant deposits of pre-separated plastics, giant collections of used car tyres, giant collections of "autofluff" as they call it - the useless crap left over from shredding cars. All this stuff would take little energy to recycle with the appropriate technology (such as this), and could provide large energy returns.
And more importantly, what about further waste? Sure, some people might think that civilization is about to collapse and therefore there won't be any more consumption and hence no more waste, but in the real world we still need to plan for the future - and that is one where cities will continue to churn out massive amounts of garbage and waste. Even during a major economic breakdown, there is still going to be a lot of waste generated. And being able to recycle the hydrocarbons from that waste offers a large, previously untapped source of energy.
Maybe in Mad Max land people might sort through landfill piles for scraps of oil to power their Thunderdome machines, but in the here and now, we've got huge amounts of oil and gas just sitting there, waiting for the appropriate technology to recycle them.
My city has been saving all of it's plastic for decades, how about yours? What about in the future, as oil becomes increasingly valuable and recycling becomes easier?
pstarr wrote:
Dave, there really is no reason to spend our last days on the petroleum teat analyzing its whithered desiccated state.
Yeah, lets just assume that a new potential source of energy is not going to help any and just keep on dumping all of our waste into the earth. _________________ "Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
