An australian company is converting plastic from residential waste to diesel usable in any normal diesel engine. You have to fish around their site for info, the URL doesnt change per page.
http://ozmotech.com.au/
http://ozmotech.com.au/
plastic to diesel
- Thread starter Tx_Atty
- Start date
Hoss 350
My GSP, Dutch
This isn't really new technology. There have been methods of creating "synthetic" diesel fuels for quite some time. I know the Germans had a similar program during WWII to help keep up with demand for fuel in their resource strapped empire. They were converting coal to diesel, and IIRC, also had a plastic and rubber recycling program in which they converted those materials to "diesel" fuel also.
I put it in quotes, since this is considered synthetic diesel fuel, and is no more true petroleum diesel than biodiesel is true petroleum diesel. It will, however, work in a diesel engine. (which I think we can all agree will run off of pretty much anything that even remotely resembles a flammable oil)
The problem with sythetic diesel is twofold:
1.) The cost of refining was always too great to make it competitive with petro diesel.
2.) THe "feed stocks" for it's creation either had higher and better uses (coal went to coal power plants, tires were recycled into new tires, plastics were recycled into new plastics) or were not plentiful enough (plastics, for instance) to really make an impact and create enough output to create enough revenue to create enough profit to stay in business.
I wish our Aussie friends the very best in their enterprise. Maybe times have changed enough so that the highest and best use of the aforementioned products stops being recycling and starts being fuel synthesis. It seems to me that a combination of synthetic fuel, bio fuel, and petro fuel could eliminate the US need for foreign oil sources altogether, and put us on the path to self-sufficiency, and eliminate our need to go to war to protect our oil and energy interests (until something better comes along, anyway.)
I put it in quotes, since this is considered synthetic diesel fuel, and is no more true petroleum diesel than biodiesel is true petroleum diesel. It will, however, work in a diesel engine. (which I think we can all agree will run off of pretty much anything that even remotely resembles a flammable oil)
The problem with sythetic diesel is twofold:
1.) The cost of refining was always too great to make it competitive with petro diesel.
2.) THe "feed stocks" for it's creation either had higher and better uses (coal went to coal power plants, tires were recycled into new tires, plastics were recycled into new plastics) or were not plentiful enough (plastics, for instance) to really make an impact and create enough output to create enough revenue to create enough profit to stay in business.
I wish our Aussie friends the very best in their enterprise. Maybe times have changed enough so that the highest and best use of the aforementioned products stops being recycling and starts being fuel synthesis. It seems to me that a combination of synthetic fuel, bio fuel, and petro fuel could eliminate the US need for foreign oil sources altogether, and put us on the path to self-sufficiency, and eliminate our need to go to war to protect our oil and energy interests (until something better comes along, anyway.)
pdt1081
Full Access Member
Hoss 350 said:I put it in quotes, since this is considered synthetic diesel fuel, and is no more true petroleum diesel than biodiesel is true petroleum diesel. It will, however, work in a diesel engine. (which I think we can all agree will run off of pretty much anything that even remotely resembles a flammable oil)
Sorry for digging this up, but I hope you're not saying converting plastic to diesel is making synthetic diesel. Plastics do not occur in nature. They are polymers that are formed by humans. Usually this forming is done by reacting hydrocarbons (which diesel and gasoline are) with other elements and a catalyst to form long chains of molecules. What they are doing is reversing the process to produce fuels. Very $$$.
Hoss 350
My GSP, Dutch
Cutting froghairs with a broadax, don't you think?pdt1081 said:
The definition of synthetic oils (diesel included) is an oil made by either a natural or a synthetic stock material by a refining process, as long as the original material is not petroleum oil, or a living plant or animal. If it comes from petroleum crude, it is petroleum diesel. If it comes from a plant or animal, it is biodiesel. If it comes from ANYTHING else, it is synthetic diesel. That is pretty much how she works.
Now, you are correct that plastics come from petroleum. This is one process removed from the creation of the fuel, though, and the base feedstock for the plastic to diesel comversion is PLASTIC, not petroleum oil. Therefore, the diesel is synthetic diesel.
