Fraudulent Concepts in Waste-To-Energy
I spoke with a gentleman this morning about an ostensible breakthrough in converting different types of plastics to high-octane gasoline and high-quality diesel. I was saddened (though not surprised) when I received the business plan, and promptly reported back as follows (giving the guy himself the benefit of the doubt):
Sorry, John. I hate to say it, but I think you’ve been hoodwinked.
I’m not an expert on the subject, but I know enough about WTE to know that this is nonsense. If you process waste plastic you’ll wind up with a whole column full of different hydrocarbons, certainly not this extremely high concentration of high-end fuels. Also, the math here calls for about 40% efficiency of converting the chemical energy of the waste into useable fuel, which is complete bulls**t. If I were you, an honest professional, I would run away from this as fast as I could.
I have a theory that explains the concentration of criminal fraudsters in the WTE sector: the science isn’t as straightforward as it is in most of the other flavors of renewables. If I told you that I’m generating 2 kilowatts of solar energy from something (anything) that’s one square meter, you’d say, “Oh really? That surface is absorbing at most 1 kW and you’re giving me 2 kW in return? Does that seem credible to you—or anyone with a 6th grade education?”
In biomass this isn’t quite as simple. Sure, conservation of energy still applies, but the pitch man can normally avoid taking that on directly, since there is more than enough municipal solid waste (or waste-wood, or waste-tires, or whatever) in the world to make anyone a billionaire, even if he’s experiencing 1% efficiency. (The liar in the case above got too cocky and presented more information than he needed to.) In most cases, the reader is immediately inundated with pseudo-biochemistry, and, unless he has some grasp on the subject, is quickly snowed.
Where is law enforcement when it’s needed? I’ll let you answer that one.
I would think that in order to convert mixed plastics in MSW to substitutes for gasoline or diesel, you would need to start by sorting the waste to remove recyclable materials and items which will not combust. The remaining MSW is subjected to high temperature pyrolysis or plasma torch thermal treatment at around 1500C to break the waste down to syngas (a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide). You would then need to separate out all the other substances such as NOx, Sulphur, chlorine, water vapour etc, (Gas cleanup) then build up the hydrocarbons you want by Fischer Tropsch. synthesis. Such a process can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks from coal to plastics, waste food, and sewage sludge.
An alternative route would be catalytic cracking however this would only be suitable for some plastics like polythene which are pure hydrocarbons without any chlorine or other nasty additives. (Without clean feed, it would be hard to produce clean fuel in this way.)
For mixed plastics (unsuitable for recycling, the raw energy value is around 9000 kWh thermal per ton of plastic (Around 10% less than gasoline).
In a research article
Synthesis of Petroleum-Based Fuel from Waste Plastics and Performance Analysis in a CI Engine
Christine Cleetus,1 Shijo Thomas,2 and Soney Varghese2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Calicut, Kerala 673601, India
2School of Nano Science and Technology, NIT Calicut, Kerala 673601, India
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jen/2013/608797/
showed thermal cracking giving a yield of between 68% and 77% liquid by weight in the gasoline to diesel density range, however this is not to say that this proportion of the energy was retained in the fuel.
It should be remembered that a lot of external energy was applied in the form of heat to drive the pyrolysis as well as extensive requirements for sorting and separating of plastics. I would not like to estimate the ratio of fuel to energy in, but I expect you would be doing well to achieve 40% even for clean sorted plastics.
Hi Craig:
First off, even though I am sort of a lurker on your e-mail list, I always enjoy your postings. Today’s touched close to home. I think the problem is that people want a simple and cheap answer to the woes of our present world. The want to forget the realities of science.
I was at a trade show this past fall, and there was a booth for a helical wind turbine (from a manufacturer who shall remain nameless). I’ve been selling residential wind turbines for ~20 years, and their machine’s data about what it could do, like generate 36 KWH at 12 mph wind speeds, etc…. Well, it was too much to legitimize. The science wasn’t there to back up the numbers. And of course, it wasn’t even in production; they were looking for ‘investors’. You could place a $5000 deposit and if you cancelled your order for any reason, your could get $4500 of it back. Nice scam! If they could get a deposit from 100 people, worst case scenario, they’d make $50K! The fraudsters aren’t just in the WTE sector.
I just got off the phone with a fellow promoting a magic black box that would allow any 12V appliance to use “40 to 60% less power”. I guess he doesn’t keep up with the times, and didn’t know that battery-based PV systems are usually 24V or mostly 48V. I advised him not to quit his day job.
It would be nice to think that one could cleanly turn waste plastic to, say, automotive fuel, but as you pointed out there are a lot of worms in that can. I do suspect, in the future, that our landfills and recycling centers will be harvested, and feeding alternative fuels or (more likely) biomass processing centers. I hope that the R & D continues to make that possible — but we are a long way from there.
As the owner of a business that sells PV systems, one of the things I find myself saying a lot is that “we can’t change the laws of physics to fit your wallet”. it is in human nature, I think, to want something big for very little.
Keep up the good fight!
I appreciate the kind words. Scammers as brazen as the ones you describe usually wind up making license plates.
The only good use for some mixed plastics it to add to incinerators to get the temperatures up to proper levels due to a recycling plan became to efficient which is what happened in Tampa
i would like to say, yes system of waste to energy is working very well here in South Africa is and most of investors need to deal with project initiators inconjuction with project developer and no project initiator can compose business plan without assistant from project developer. most business plans are copy and paste. investor must invest from phase one till to production phase. that must be the system need to be adopted by business communities due to the highly fraudulent project proposals.
plastic to energy is a real waste management solution but investor must deal with most reputable project developers only. Thanks Greig.
Craig:
I read the comments and the thought occurred to me that our technology using industrial waste as a fuel and not emitting carbon dioxide nor air derived nitrogen oxide sounds to good to be true. We have tested and can show proof to any interested partner, nsreef@cs.com
Craig, As usual, a very interesting article. Ironically, several years ago, because of what we are about to do in recycling man-made waste, including plastics into our pending transformational method of construction, my wife and I were private guests at the plastic association’s test facility which is ironically near your home. We saw raw plastics including tires being dumped into a hopper at the end of a structure not too much bigger than a grocery store rack. In the center were spigots from which lamp black from the labels; molten steel from the tires and other reusable materials were gathered. At the end was a large hose which fed the recovered liquids into a waiting tanker to be taken to Texas to be refined into oil. Once the unit was started, it raised the temperature up to that necessary to operate independent of outside energy sources. To say we were impressed is an understatement
.
However, as a young college friend of our son who came to Oregon to assist the so called environmental charity industry, explained to us. if they promote the fact that 67% of the waste in our landfills is paper and construction debris, no donations come in. But, if they push plastics which only account for 13% of the landfill, the donations pour in. So, because heat is used to convert the plastics, they got Oregon and then other states to call it ‘burning’ and outlawed the process.
Hi folks:
Here’s a link to an article about a WTE project in Maryland, where the local community (in an already polluted neighborhood, surrounded by other industrial facilities) is not happy about the prospects:
http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003333133/in-baltimore-a-fight-for-clean-air.html?emc=edit_th_20150111&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63383673
In the ugly face of environmental racism, I can see why these folks look askance at yet another possible source of pollution in their area. If I were in their shoes, it would be difficult to believe that the new facility would be any better than what has come before.
Yes, I see where they’re coming from. In this case, it seems quite likely that the site in question really IS the best for all concerned, but it’s hard to tell that to people who have lived with that level of deprivation and oppression.
When it comes to conversion of mixed plastics, tires, mixed municipal wastes etc. to a high value product I recommend the most simple conversion routes of combustion to obtain heat or gasification to obtain a gaseous fuel to power engine driven generators or to fuel boilers. The best choice among those two choices will depend on the amount and type of feedstock available to co-fire along with biomass from dedicated energy crops or crop residues or from demolition debris or other sources of biomass. Therefore the most innovative and advanced technology designed for handling and conversion of bulky fuels in the most simple and direct manner is the best overall option for obtaining the value from such bulky low value fuels and is what the world is looking for. The technology must also be modular and scalable such that it can be installed and added to and easily modified as local conditions warrant. It should also be a technology that can be manufactured in whatever sizes are needed in any locality in the world. Alaska to Zimbabwe. Contact me at LBlevins@aaecorp.com with questions or for one or more of my position papers on the various subtopics.
Here is a notice being posted on Linkedin and elsewhere.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE OR INVESTMENT NEEDED FOR NEW CONCEPT WORLD REPOWERING TECH ONLY SIX MONTHS FROM MARKET ENTRY.
Advanced Alternative Energy Corp. (AAEC) is for those who understand that distributed alternative/renewable energy derived from biomass and waste is a viable pathway to stall global warming and produce a better future for our descendants, our communities and for humanity.
AAEC has developed a new concept low-carbon energy technology we’ve designed for serving as the core technology for cleaner renewable energy production systems and energy efficiency improvements across the North American landscape and around the world. AAEC’s novel new concept technology consists of a biomass, fossil fuel, and/or waste combustion, gasification and pyrolysis conversion technology that can provide scalable heat and power requirements as well as biofuel production for stand-alone use or for backup for other alternative energy systems that depend on solar, wind or other intermittent sources of energy, and in this way it will help double the deployment of alternative energy projects around the world in the coming decades.
AAEC’s product lines can be manufactured in the US and in most any locality on any continent for the local and regional market. This AAEC believes could create licensing opportunities and many thousands more good paying jobs, and these are among the things we propose offering to an alternative energy hungry world.
For further details please contact:
Les Blevins, President
Advanced Alternative Energy
1207 N 1800 Rd., Lawrence, KS 66049
Phone 785-842-1943
Email LBlevins@aaecorp.com
For more info see
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http://advancedalternativeenergy.com
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=45587557
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