Recycling to the nth degree. The future?

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12141-giant-microwave-turns-plastic-back-to-oil.html

A team use microwaves to break plastics (or any hydrocarbon) back to
oils around the deisel grade and carbon black. Now THIS has to be a
good idea...

 

One wonders how much energy (derived from what source(s)) it takes to
operate the microwave generator. Perhaps the greener thing to do might
be to simply grind up the plastic and re-use it without expending quite
so much energy.

 

A company quoted in the article (GRC) says...

"Autofluff is the stuff that is left over after a car has been
shredded and the steel extracted. It contains plastics, rubber, wood,
paper, fabrics, glass, sand, dirt, and various bits of metal. GRC says
its Hawk-10 can extract enough oil and gas from the left-over fluff to
run the Hawk-10 itself and a number of other machines used by
Gershow.".

I can only assume when finally sorted it will be viable. I hope so.

 

Possibly. I can see the time when the recovered / reconstituted oil will
have much more value as a raw feedstock for the chemical industry than
as a fuel if this is done on a large scale.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Electricity can be generated in large cheap quantities without CO2
generation so I don't see the problem. The French manage this quite nicely.

 

It's probably too little, too late.

D.

 

I'm not thinking of CO2, more the value of the raw material when the oil
runs out properly. I can see old landfills being opened up and armies of
cheap labour being used to sift through the debris and gunge, retrieving
old plastic.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Blimey, you could feed babies to that as well and turn them into
something useful.

 

SAY NO TO MORE NUCLEAR POWER.

Geothermal is the only answer.