I hope and pray this pans out

[holzman_tweed]

There is a process in beta testing that can efficiently make a light oil composed of roughly 50% heating oil and 50% gasoline out of anying that is chemically organic.

If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.

Let me say that again, because it is what makes this so utterly revolutionary: anything that is chemically organic. I don't think I can overstate the implications if this winds up going into production:

• Gasoline and oil become end products of recycling. The need to drill for oil goes away. Indeed, crude oil is less desirable a product than this stuff, because you have to refine crude oil. What little oil still has to get drilled becomes fodder for this process.
  
• With oil refinement becoming a thing of the past, or at least greatly curtailed, the polution generated from it plummets.
  
• Polution from coal vanishes. Assuming one needs mine coal anymore at all, coal becomes fodder for this process.
  
• Sewage treatment goes away -- sewage becomes fodder for this process, which has sterile water as one of it's by-products.
  
• Livestock by-products mysticly transform from a disposal challenge to a resource. In fact, the company has already partnered with a food conglomerate to take all of their chicken guts off their hands.
  

And that's just today. Let's look at where this can go:

• Miniaturization: Today, a small rig can fit on a flatbed truck. Is it possible that in 50 years, every home will come equiped with a garbage disposal that feeds into a smaller version of this rig, producing heating oil for that home and gasoline for their car? Might it become unnecessary to have a central distribution infrastructure to deliver heating oil? Might gas stations become a backup-measure if one happens to be on a road trip?
  
• Politics: What happens in the middle east if no one cares that they have oil fields?
  
• Economic: The oil industry is a large one. How does the landscape change if we no longer have to give them our money?
  

Wow.

Comments

[chorus.livejournal.com]

It's nice to see the technocracy occasionally are still the good guys.

This is neat.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

It makes me worried for the people who are doing this research. There are a lot of wealthy, powerful people who have major reasons to want them to go away.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Too late to kill them!

They've already patented the process, which means anyone can look it up and do it themselves.

Apparently, the oil companies are on board because it means they'll spend less money on refining crude oil -- not to mention giving less money to the people who own the oil fields.

[backdoor-uk.livejournal.com]

I posted the link to my local group which are very interested in enviromental issues. One reply is so funny I have to share it (it's from the local member of the UK independance party):

"Exactly! This process was invented by an engineer in Manchester - what,
twenty years ago? - but don't expect the Americans to admit it! We should
have got into this by the 90's and we should certainly be getting into it
now."

*rotflmao*

[holzman.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the process that was invented 20 years ago didn't take off because yield wasn't high enough to make it feasable. This fellow is using a pressure change instead of a temperature change, which changes the yield significantly.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

*googles*

Here's a good bit of interesting discussion (http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/001206.html) about it.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

*excited*