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Read the rest of this articleTurning plastic into oil lands Agilyx lots of gold
Perhaps inspired by Rumpelstiltskin’s example of spinning flax into gold, Agilyx Corporation, based in Tigard, Oregon, is turning plastic into oil. Agilyx recently announced that it raised $22 million to develop and commercialize its oil-producing process. But the economics of the technology is based less on making black gold and more on getting rid of waste plastic.
Agilyx claims it developed an energy efficient technology to convert plastic back into oil. The corporation uses pyrolysis, which is a process that heats the plastic in an oxygen-free atmosphere. The plastic is melted and then gasified, and is de-polymerized back into its constituent monomers. Impurities are separated out, and the crude oil is condensed and collected. An advantage of this process is that plastic doesn’t need t be separated into PP or PET or HDPE; it can work with mixed-waste plastic.
Although this technology may sound like a great fuel alternative, it actually is just a good way to eliminate waste plastic. The energy available from the “crude oil” must be less than the energy used to make it. After all, if oil could be turned into plastic and then transformed back to oil without any energy losses, the process would be a version of the mythical perpetual motion machine.
Even Agilyx notes that its business is to get rid of plastic waste, not to produce oil:
Agilyx and its investors believe the company's bigger role — and the core of its market potential — is in preventing several million tons of plastic from filling landfills each year.
When one considers the energy needed to transport waste plastic and melt it down to recycle it into new products, this process might just be a winner. Turning plastic into oil is a better way to get rid of waste plastic rather than letting it fill up landfills or cover oceans.
And that’s not to mention the $22 million raised by Agilyx. That’s enough gold to impress that other mythical figment Rumpelstiltskin.
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There is also a publicly traded company (JBI Inc, ticker JBII) that claims to have a more efficient process for converting plastic into fuel oil. The business of converting trash into fuel is becoming a big deal.
I don't follow your comment about a perpetual motion machine. Doesn't the interesting question about energy production begin with the preexisting waste material and not with the oil before it is turned into plastics? Then, you could have this calculation: (I'll make up numbers that have no anchor in reality, but demonstrate the relationships):
10 barrels of crude oil long since turned into plastics (i.e. in the form of plastics) PLUS
1 barrel of crude oil used to convert the plastics into oil EQUALS
2 barrels of crude oil.
So yes, you would start with 11 and get 2. But that's better than starting with 11 and getting 1, which is what you have in the other scenario.
The viability of the process for energy production would depend on its efficiency, but needn't be excluded at the outset. Of course you get no perpetual motion machine, but perhaps a machine that runs on a readily available, cheap fuel: old plastic.
Your right - it really depends on how your draw your boundary. I was thinking about going from oil to plastic to oil ad infinitum; obviously, with losses, at some point you'll have nothing left.
But as a way to get rid of waste plastic, I do think it's a good idea.