[Omnitir]

NewScientist
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NewScientist', '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.

[mekrob]

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?

[Omnitir]

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!

[Bas]

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.

[SILENTTODD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'i')f 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.

[Gerben]

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.

[AndyK]

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.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '
')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.

[Boris555]

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.

[Dvanharn]

...because most of them are collected separately from other trash. There are mountains



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!

Dave

[Dvanharn]

The tags and URL are correct!

Dave

[TheDude]

Was going to mention depolymerization. Sounds very similiar.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')his 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.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'o')nce 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

[Judgie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '
')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.

[Omnitir]

Fine, you win. Recycling waste energy can not possibly save us (not that I said it could), and so we should not bother, and just keep on consuming new stuff and tossing out old stuff.

And you win regarding techno-fix. Someone makes a strong argument for how much trouble we are in, and that proves conclusively that there is nothing we can do towards getting out of that trouble. Let's just give up and accept that there are no solutions, at least, not any new solutions. The evil technology is responsible for all the woes in the world, and once we are rid of it there won't be any more problems.

You win, we are all going to die horrible painful deaths because we allowed ourselves to become more than simple, non-tool using animals.

Sorry if I offend you're religion with suggestions of solutions that involve [s]the devil[/s] technology. Let's just stick with existing tech, as new tech can't possibly offer anything good. You win.

[Judgie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'F')ine, you win. Recycling waste energy can not possibly save us (not that I said it could), and so we should not bother, and just keep on consuming new stuff and tossing out old stuff.

And you win regarding techno-fix. Someone makes a strong argument for how much trouble we are in, and that proves conclusively that there is nothing we can do towards getting out of that trouble. Let's just give up and accept that there are no solutions, at least, not any new solutions. The evil technology is responsible for all the woes in the world, and once we are rid of it there won't be any more problems.

You win, we are all going to die horrible painful deaths because we allowed ourselves to become more than simple, non-tool using animals.

Sorry if I offend you're religion with suggestions of solutions that involve [s]the devil[/s] technology. Let's just stick with existing tech, as new tech can't possibly offer anything good. You win.