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Solar Plastic Oil Wells?
I have an idea that may help some with the trash vortex problem out in
our oceans. At the very least it may help others start thinking of
their own ideas.
I’ve been reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower">solar power towers</a> and happened to have read about the <a href="http://moonseeds.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/the-north-pacific-gyre-the-plastic-vortex-the-8th-continent/">plastics clogging our oceans</a>. I started to think that if a solar tower were set up on something like an old oil rig, with some sort of net or dredging device to scoop the plastic it would be a self powered way to at least start to clean out the plastic. The only thing I was having issues with was what to do with all of the plastic that gets scooped.
I started looking at different things that are done with plastics to recycle them. It’s not easy to take unsorted plastic from the ocean and make it usable for consumers again. That’s when I stumbled across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization">Thermal depolymerization</a>.
From Wikipedia:
Thermal depolymerization (TDP) is a process using hydrous pyrolysis for the reduction of complex organic materials (usually waste products of various sorts, often known as biomass and plastic) into light crude oil. It mimics the natural geological processes thought to be involved in the production of fossil fuels. Under pressure and heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons with a maximum length of around 18 carbons.
It’s oil, that we can get for free, floating on the ocean. Environmentally friendly and profitable.
The only downside I can think of is, are there fish & ocean mammals swimming in that stuff? How could the plastic be harvested without harming wildlife?
(crossposted on <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/19/10515/0446/656/538348>kos</a>)
Comments (6)
Gah. Sorry. This is my first post here. I didn't realize I couldn't use links.
June 19, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
You can post links, and add other html code, but you need to use the buttons. Read the instructions above the text entry box. When commenting you will need to enter the html code.
June 19, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just off the top of my head it seems like energy spent on the project would be greater than energy gained. Harvesting the plastic looks like a hugh expensive project to begin with. What about the plankton? Much of the plastic has broken down to plankton size, so the seive would catch both.
I was imagining huge factory ships that would collect and compress the plastic into say, building blocks (lego?) or two by fours. Some of the artificial lumber on the market right now contains quite a bit of waste plastic. But it might smell like fish.
What's really interesting to me is that I haven't been able to find any "solutions" or "proposed solutions" to this horrendous environmental problem on the Internet. Glad to see you thinking about it. Hope more people do.
June 19, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
A green investor friend of mine looked into mining the plastic in the gyre. Sadly, as neoboho surmises, it's not economically viable. Forgetting about the plankton sized pieces, even raking out the big pieces and burning them at sea is a losing proposition, at least economically.
June 19, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can use links. You have to use the buttons at the top of the posting window.
The first two rules are:
1) When POSTING, use the buttons at the top of the text window. Type out your entire post, then go back and highlight the sections you want italicized, underlined, blockquoted, or linked. After highlighting your chosen section, click the button at the top of the text window to modify it as you see fit.
2) When COMMENTING, most html tags work fine. links, bold, italics, blockquotes all work. you can't imped photos or videos; the best you can do is upload a photo to flickr or get your video's url and link to it.
Every 1st time poster makes this mistake, and TPM is notoriously slow about making the site more user friendly.
June 19, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that. I tried to preformat the post in Word first, then C&P it in to here so I wouldn't mess it up too bad. Silly me.
I thought the buttons at the bottom were just assist buttons, and it would take raw html.
June 19, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
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