NBR | Plastic May Be the Newest Fuel Find | PBS

http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/editors_picks/green-options_home/
PBS Airdate: October 6, 2009
A lot of plastic never makes it to the recycling bin. Take a look at what some people are doing with the waste.
For more information visit:
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/editors_picks/green-options_home/

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• pbs
• nightly business report
• stephanie dhue
• oil
• plastic
• energy
• fuel
• green options
• green energy

[EcoMaginative]

Based on data shared by Envion ( 60,000 barrels of oil from 30 TPD plant) the cost of 30 TPD plant should be around $1.5- $2.0 Mill for the technology to be viable ... Envion shall need to work to bring the plant cost down for this technology to be deployed by government utilities / plastic waste management companies.

[EcoMaginative]

5,000 barrels of oil from 10,000 tonnes of plastic a year translates to 80 ml of oil from 1 kg of plastic -- that's a very measly conversion of about 6% (by wt).

Surely, this is incorrect or the technology is far from being commercially viable. Envion / PBS should issue clarification regarding this -- such promotion does more harm than good.

[Beau1K]

Agreed. $7M is too much for how little oil it produces. Green Power Systems claims it can produce 85,000 gallons of diesel per day.

[Bluzer86]

cool

[Charles2337]

Too much energy to do this. I think Hydrogen is the fuel of the future.

[JixMa]

Wow! Awesome! God bless Michael Han and Envion! What an awesome idea! Take plastic and remove the oil from it and use it as a fuel rather than burying the plastic container in the ground for the ages. Too bad the rich power elites will find a way to kill this great idea too. (sigh)

[voyeurdug]

Ten years ago, plastic soda bottles were just beginning to be recycled into structural items with far lower grade technologies. There's not much of a market for picnic tables that will last for 20 generations... but that sort of displacement of traditional organic materials would leave arable land open for food production and non-food agricultural products.

Just need to constantly increase the market(s), and the percent of plastic material being recycled.

[CaliforniaArchitect]

I did the math, which they didn't do in the video. If it generates 5,000 barrels of oil per year at $70/barrel, then the payback period is 20 years based on the start up costs only. That doesn't include the cost of running the facility, and it doesn't take into consideration that the cost of oil might drop (or rise). Sounds like a great idea if the cost came down.