Modern Marvel

Yesterday may have been just another day for some people, but for us it was the day that CWT went down in History. That's because Modern Marvels, the History Channel's hit series, was taping at our TCP plant in Carthage, Missouri, for an episode that will air later this year. CWT has actually been featured in many prestigious television programs in the past several years, including "Future Cars" and "Techknowledge" on the Discovery Channel, and another History Channel program called "Boneyard." (We have also been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles -- too many to mention, but some of my personal favorites appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, Scientific American, the New York Times and Newsday, to name a few. If you do an Internet search you'll find these and a bunch of others.)

Modern Marvels showcases America's passion for ingenuity and innovation. The producers felt that our waste-into-oil technology fit their profile. Now if only our energy policy-makers would arrive at the same conclusion...!

As soon as we know the air date and time for "our" Modern Marvels segment, we'll post the information here. So keep reading!

The Earth Day Blues

It's hard to get excited about Earth Day when the answer to one of our greatest environmental challenges is sitting right in front of us, and our policy makers can't see it through the smoke screen put up by the energy establishment. What could make more sense than utilizing above-ground waste streams to create a renewable, reliable, cost-effective, environmentally sound, domestic source of energy, that also arrests global warming in its tracks and solves the solid waste management crisis at the same time? Duh. Who wants that? Especially when we can continue to wage oil wars, divert our crops, add more carbon to the atmosphere, and wallow in a planet's worth of solid waste? So instead of celebrating Earth Day with a rousing chorus of "yes we can," I ruminate about the wayward path our national leaders are taking us down, and hope they get tired enough of clearing the garbage out of their sneaker treads to recognize and embrace the solution.

Food Fight

The farmers are under attack. But to blame the farmers is not totally fair. The fact is, the capital markets hyped renewable energy as the new pot of gold for cash-strapped farmers to a point that will make the dot-com and energy hype of the 90's look childish. The hype took food out of people's mouths, by diverting crops from the food chain to the ethanol windfall. Farmers are entitled to earn and make a living, but if renewable energy hadn't been so over-hyped there would have been controlled growth instead of a gold rush. So now that nobody can afford corn or soy beans, farmers, too, are being hurt by the investments that they made in producing feedstock for the bio-fuel pipeline. They didn't see the backlash coming.

Clearly, the blame game will further distort the facts. As an example, it is not just corn (ethanol) going into cars with no meaningful C.A.F.E. standard. It is not just the fact that corn is grown with fossil fuels, and the main fertilizer used is anhydrous ammonia, which is made from natural gas. Fossil fuel prices are very high due to increasing worldwide demand. There are droughts, floods and many other factors that can and have contributed to increasing food prices. Pointing fingers is not the point. What we are missing is that growing food for fuel is a bad idea. We have a better solution -- the utilization of waste as a source for our energy needs.

Our company fights every day to gain parity under the incentives provided for both fossil fuels and traditional bio-fuels made from food crops. You would think that with all the attention being paid to the "green revolution" that our leaders in Congress and industry would actually provide additional incentives and resources to companies that can convert waste into oil. The system needs to change if we want to continue as a species. We must become sustainable, and it will not be done by accepting what big oil and big "ag" have to say. Waste to oil is one solution for avoiding the atrocities that are happening today due to diverting food into fuel, and Big Oil extracting more than a pound of flesh from every human being on this planet.

The CO2 Dilema

The U.S. thinks it is at a crossroads on how to reduce CO2 released into the atmosphere. There is only one road to take. Two be clear, there are currently two very different approaches used by governments:

• One, a tax on CO2 emitted into the air. This is the best way to go because it provides a clear price signal to the market, is less susceptible to market manipulations, and can be used as a revenue raiser to incentivize new emerging technologies that supplement fossil fuels.

• Two is a system called "Cap and Trade." But, this system DOES NOT WORK!
  

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2008, one of the pioneers in advancing a Cap and Trade system, is sinking. Cap and Trade is touted by the promoters of such a market-based approach as the only fair system. Not true as these are essentially permits to pollute, and result in a market where "anything goes."


In the real world, these trading schemes are difficult to audit and even harder to certify as legitimate. The permits are the equivalent of cash, creating fraudulent opportunities. Some promoters argue that we could emulate what has been labeled as a successful SOx trading scheme, but that is not true. CO2 is a pervasive bi-product of the economy and long-lived in the environment. The exposed European Union failures underscore the ability for market manipulation and shows what not to do.


No one wants to create a tax since this is a repeat of the infamous "Btu tax" of the early 90's, when the nation watched one major party lose control of Congress as the result of energy tax. If we do not create a CO2 tax it would be best to just do nothing, as opposed to crafting legislation that will just lead to manipulation and another future government bailout of these buyers of fradulent permits. These would not be unintended consequences because everyone is aware of the pittfalls. It is another chance to game the system like we did with the savings and loan crises in the early 90's which blossomed into the currenet sub-prime loan crises, still unraveling today. Leave the CO2 issue alone if you cannot put a tax on carbon.

The WSJ Reported April 11,2008 "Seoul Unlikely to End U.S. Beef Ban"

U.S. beef exported to South Korea is off close to 250,000 metric tons since the U.S. mad cow issue was disclosed at the end of 2003. There is no excuse for allowing these sales to slip away given the well documented history of BSE in Europe and the rest of the world. There has been a simple solution to solving this problem which the Canadian government adopted last year. Specifically, it would be for the U.S. to adhere to currently approved worldwide guidelines in the removal of waste and high risk materials from entering animal feed.

Why don't we have this on the books now?
It is simple, the U.S. agencies responsible (FDA and USDA) are both in a difficult position to make such simple decisions, as they promote sales but also regulate food safety. This leaves them in conflict, which means their action of doing nothing continues hurting what was one our most admired industries, meat processing. The influence over the FDA and USDA by a few powerful special interest groups will result in putting the industry at further risk to future liabilities. Two recent events, last year's pet food recall and the recent Hallmark beef recall, illustrates this vulnerability.

What is the impact of this conflict of interest?
Billions of dollars in lost sales. What is equally concerning is that once the sales void is filled from other countries that do not allow cannibalism, it will then be very difficult to get back those lost sales, costing ranchers and meat processors important jobs in the U.S.

What's It Going to Take?

Oil prices hit another high today- over $112/barrel. What's it going take before our energy policy recognizes the sheer common sense of utilizing above-ground carbon sources to produce a domestic supply of energy? Low value waste streams from agricultural refuse [not food crops] to used tires are a ready feedstock that can be converted into renewable diesel fuel oil easily, quickly and efficiently. Our fuel is helping to keep local business in business while reducing fossil fuel use.

Let's see where imported oil prices stand tomorrow once we depoly more waste to oil facilities!

How TCP Works

Our thermal conversion process (TCP) breaks down chains of organic polymers into smaller units and reforms them into new combinations to produce renewable diesel fuel oil and specialty chemicals, like fertilizers. The process emulates the earth’s natural geothermal activity, which converts organic material into fossil fuels under conditions of extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. We mimic the earth’s process, using pipes and vessels and controlling temperature and pressure, to reduce the process from millions of years to mere hours. We do it without combustion, incineration or producing toxic residue.

What is really neat is the process is more than 80% energy efficient.

A limited number of government officials have provided some support but our energy and farm policies take front and center stage and the reality is new technologies are just not that important in the early stages of development. Very few congressional leaders find dealing with waste that important unless they are in highly populated states.

After the November elections, we belive efforts to turn waste to oil will become important.

Welcome

Welcome to our waste-to-oil blog. Our company is the pioneer of producing renewable diesel fuel oil from waste. U will be hearing from us on matters relating to achieving a more sustainable environment.

Our goal is to create a forum to navigate though the hype, the misconception and the stark realities of producing renewable energy without negatively impacting the environment or adding additional burdens on our natural resources.

We look forward to your participation...