09/22/2005: 
Technologica
Thermal Depolymerization: The Energy Solution???
from Changing World Technologies, Inc.
Its funny how the thought process works sometimes. Living up here in Humboldt County, I see quite a few biodiesel cars on the road. In a conversation I had about biodiesel last week, I wondered whether it would be scientifically possible to make oil instead of continuing to drill for it.
A couple of days ago, I started reading "The Crystal Empire" by L. Neil Smith, an alternate history where the Black Plague destroyed Europe. Some noodling on the Internet led me to his website, and thence to an article that he wrote in the online publication The Libertarian Enterprise. In this article, Smith talks about a process called Thermal Depolymerization, which takes most kinds of organic garbage and turns it into crude oil and water. Changing World Technologies, Inc. is the name of the company that took this process and developed it for commercial use. They have a plant in Carthage, Missouri next to a Butterball turkey plant which takes the offal from the plant and converts into barrels of crude oil.
This certainly sounds like a technology that could change the future. I wonder why I haven't heard about it until yesterday? Hmmm...
