Turkey Trash

Heart of America Radio reports on an effort to turn waste from turkey processing plants into fuel.

The Butterball turkey processing plant in Carthage, MO produces a staggering amount of waste – annually averaging more than 200 tons a day from the slaughter of 30,000 turkeys. Now, a New York company is turning this offal into oil. Changing World Technologies (CWT) of West Hempstead, New York, collaborated with food giant ConAgra to open its first "waste-to-energy" plant in Carthage, Missouri -- just down the road from the Butterball turkey plant. They have developed a process for turning turkey leftovers into commercial-grade fuel oil, while emitting no pollutants. In fact, chemical engineers say they think they eventually can do the same with just about any carbon-based waste, from tires to sewage sludge. The technique, which is called thermal depolymerization (TDP), is not completely new; but the CWT processing plant is the first commercially viable application.

Using TDP, wastes like turkey guts can be converted into a golden liquid that can be refined into heating oil, diesel fuel or gasoline. If the process is viable on a large scale, CWT says the results could make a significant impact on the toxic waste problem and yield a significant amount of oil. Fuel equal to four billion barrels of oil could be produced each year if all the refuse from agriculture in the United States was converted in this way.

Thermal Depolymerization is essentially an accelerated version of the process that the Earth used when it put buried vegetation and dinosaur parts under pressure over long periods of time to form petroleum deposits. The TDP process reduces the time it takes to break down the molecular bonds that allows the waste to be turned into fuel and other by- products. It takes the earth millions of years to achieve this same effect. The process produces four products: high quality oil, clean burning gas, water, carbon and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers or specialty chemicals for manufacturing.

According to CWT's Chief Technology Officer, Terry Adams, the system developed by Changing World Technologies could change almost anything into oil. The process will digest garbage, medical waste, hog manure, plastic bottles, old tires – anything that contains carbon, the major chemical constituent of most organic matter. In one end goes the waste products, and out the other end comes caramel-colored liquid that resembles crude oil. They say it costs about $15 a barrel to produce oil in this manner, and plant officials hope the cost will come down as more plants are built. (note: it costs about $5 for a major oil company to produce a barrel of oil).

According to Jeff Tester, professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, the biggest challenge CWT faces is making this technology work on a large, national scale. It will need to do so, he says, to realize their revolutionary goals. Tester compares this early stage of TDP development with what the oil industry or the Wright Brothers experienced when first starting out. Where might we be now if we did not invest in scaling up those industries? It was a long process, but it worked.

Jeff Tester, professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, says the biggest challenge CWT faces is making this technology work on a large, national scale.

CONTACTS

Terry Adams: Engineer, Chief Technology Officer
Changing World Technologies
Phone: (253) 927-7297

Jeff Tester: Professor, Chemical Engineer
Chemical Engineering Department and Laboratory for Energy and the Environment
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 66-454
25 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 253-7090

LINKS

XM Satellite Radio broadcast this story.

The Osgood File

WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.

Changing World Technologies

The 2003 Scientific American List of 50 winners

Changing World Tech reprinted this article from The Kansas City Star about converting turkey waste.

MIT Energy Lab

CWT's press kit

The U.S. Government has information about alternative fuels and vehicles.

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