A New Way to Turn Plastic Into Fuel? By Matthew L. Wald, NY Times, September 16, 2009. "Entrepreneurs have been trying for years to turn low-value wastes into high-value products. Waste plastic is among the lowest in value, and gasoline or diesel fuel the highest, but machines to do that conversion usually consume a lot of energy and get gummed-up by leftover material that they cannot convert. Now a company in Washington, D.C., is trying out a new way -- heating the plastic to a very carefully controlled temperature range, with infra-red energy. The company, Envion, [launched on Wednesday] a $5 million plant that it says will annually convert 6,000 tons of plastic into nearly a million barrels of something resembling oil. The product can be blended with other components and sold as gasoline or diesel. 'We are the world's largest oil consumer and the world's biggest producer of waste,' said Michael Han, chairman and chief executive of the company. This process will convert one to the other for about $10 a barrel, he said.'"
2009-09-17
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment