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Turkey waste turned into oil
BY DAN FAGIN
Newsday
June 7, 2004
CARTHAGE, Mo. -- A Long Island entrepeneur's dream of building hundreds of garbage- to-oil factories is inching closer to reality, as a prototype plant in this rural town has begun selling more than 100 gallons of fuel oil per day made from scraps of slaughtered turkeys.
With the new $31-million plant now operating smoothly and generating a positive cash flow, Brian Appel is shifting his attention to building new oil- making plants that would handle other materials.
"Based on the success to date of processing the material in Carthage, we feel highly bullish that we'll be able to deploy many of these processing plants through the United States and the rest of the world," said Appel, chief executive of West Hempstead-based Changing World Technologies Inc.
Appel and his company have been riding a wave of national publicity over Changing World's patented "thermal conversion" process, which uses intense heat and pressure to transform any carbon-based waste - from sewage and animal parts to shredded computers and tires - into high-quality fuels, fertilizers and industrial ingredients.
Thermal conversion generates no pollution, and requires no energy beyond the electricity the plant produces for itself, the company said.
The company had hoped to have the Carthage plant up and running in 2003, but construction delays and process tinkerings delayed full-scale production until April.
Last month, Changing World and its partner, Nebraska-based agribusiness giant ConAgra Inc., opened the factory to the media for the first time. They gave reporters tours of the step-by-step process that begins with trailer-loads of turkey guts trucked from a nearby ConAgra slaughterhouse and ends with storage tanks full of oil.
Cheaper than refined oil
The plant's first product, an oil similar to No. 4 grade crude oil, is being sold to an unidentified fuel blender at prices more than 10 percent less than the equivalent oil produced by a conventional refinery. Despite the discount, Appel said his production costs are low enough that the plant's income is outstripping its operating expenses.
He said the company this summer plans to add additional steps to the oil-production process to make higher-grade oils that can be used in cosmetics and other consumer and industrial products.
Besides oil, the thermal conversion process also produces a fertilizer that the company is distributing free to local farmers. Starting this summer, Changing World plans to begin charging for the fertilizer, which Appel said is rich in minerals and nontoxic.
Demonstrating that companies will buy Changing World's products has been a key hurdle for the small company, which has 25 employees of its own and 55 more working for its joint venture with ConAgra. Appel declined to identify the fuel-blending company that is buying the Carthage oil, saying that information is confidential.
"People have been trying processes like this for years; they just haven't been economical. If [Changing World] can solve the economic issues, I don't think it's improbable that this company could have a very big impact," said Robert Brown, a professor of mechanical and chemical engineering at Iowa State University and an expert in biomass energy. "Most groups who are working on this kind of process are not nearly this far along," said Brown, who is not involved in the project.
Two more plants coming
Appel said Changing World and ConAgra hope to quickly complete environmental reviews and begin building their next two oil-making plants near animal slaughterhouses in Colorado and Alabama, and then in either Ireland or Italy. The company hopes that some of those plants will be used to process so-called "high-risk materials" - brains, spinal cords and certain other animal parts that are more likely to contain the proteins called prions that can cause mad cow disease.
Changing World has been touting its process as a safe way to get rid of slaughterhouse waste because thermal conversion completely destroys the prions. Currently, bones, feathers, skin and other unused animal parts are either landfilled or recycled by rendering plants into animal feed, which some scientists believe increases the risk of spreading mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
But animal scraps are only one potential source of "fuel" for Changing World's oil-making process, and the company recently reached an agreement with the three major U.S. automakers to investigate the use of auto shredder residue as a feedstock. If a second round of tests shows that the ground-up cars are suitable for thermal conversion, Appel said the company and the automakers may jointly build a plant in the Upper Midwest.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
BY DAN FAGIN
Newsday
June 7, 2004
CARTHAGE, Mo. -- A Long Island entrepeneur's dream of building hundreds of garbage- to-oil factories is inching closer to reality, as a prototype plant in this rural town has begun selling more than 100 gallons of fuel oil per day made from scraps of slaughtered turkeys.
With the new $31-million plant now operating smoothly and generating a positive cash flow, Brian Appel is shifting his attention to building new oil- making plants that would handle other materials.
"Based on the success to date of processing the material in Carthage, we feel highly bullish that we'll be able to deploy many of these processing plants through the United States and the rest of the world," said Appel, chief executive of West Hempstead-based Changing World Technologies Inc.
Appel and his company have been riding a wave of national publicity over Changing World's patented "thermal conversion" process, which uses intense heat and pressure to transform any carbon-based waste - from sewage and animal parts to shredded computers and tires - into high-quality fuels, fertilizers and industrial ingredients.
Thermal conversion generates no pollution, and requires no energy beyond the electricity the plant produces for itself, the company said.
The company had hoped to have the Carthage plant up and running in 2003, but construction delays and process tinkerings delayed full-scale production until April.
Last month, Changing World and its partner, Nebraska-based agribusiness giant ConAgra Inc., opened the factory to the media for the first time. They gave reporters tours of the step-by-step process that begins with trailer-loads of turkey guts trucked from a nearby ConAgra slaughterhouse and ends with storage tanks full of oil.
Cheaper than refined oil
The plant's first product, an oil similar to No. 4 grade crude oil, is being sold to an unidentified fuel blender at prices more than 10 percent less than the equivalent oil produced by a conventional refinery. Despite the discount, Appel said his production costs are low enough that the plant's income is outstripping its operating expenses.
He said the company this summer plans to add additional steps to the oil-production process to make higher-grade oils that can be used in cosmetics and other consumer and industrial products.
Besides oil, the thermal conversion process also produces a fertilizer that the company is distributing free to local farmers. Starting this summer, Changing World plans to begin charging for the fertilizer, which Appel said is rich in minerals and nontoxic.
Demonstrating that companies will buy Changing World's products has been a key hurdle for the small company, which has 25 employees of its own and 55 more working for its joint venture with ConAgra. Appel declined to identify the fuel-blending company that is buying the Carthage oil, saying that information is confidential.
"People have been trying processes like this for years; they just haven't been economical. If [Changing World] can solve the economic issues, I don't think it's improbable that this company could have a very big impact," said Robert Brown, a professor of mechanical and chemical engineering at Iowa State University and an expert in biomass energy. "Most groups who are working on this kind of process are not nearly this far along," said Brown, who is not involved in the project.
Two more plants coming
Appel said Changing World and ConAgra hope to quickly complete environmental reviews and begin building their next two oil-making plants near animal slaughterhouses in Colorado and Alabama, and then in either Ireland or Italy. The company hopes that some of those plants will be used to process so-called "high-risk materials" - brains, spinal cords and certain other animal parts that are more likely to contain the proteins called prions that can cause mad cow disease.
Changing World has been touting its process as a safe way to get rid of slaughterhouse waste because thermal conversion completely destroys the prions. Currently, bones, feathers, skin and other unused animal parts are either landfilled or recycled by rendering plants into animal feed, which some scientists believe increases the risk of spreading mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
But animal scraps are only one potential source of "fuel" for Changing World's oil-making process, and the company recently reached an agreement with the three major U.S. automakers to investigate the use of auto shredder residue as a feedstock. If a second round of tests shows that the ground-up cars are suitable for thermal conversion, Appel said the company and the automakers may jointly build a plant in the Upper Midwest.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
