Destructive Distillate
By Late Nite LeRoy
July 23, 2001
Another energy source recently perfected is Destructive Distillation (DD).
Biomass is a fancy term for organic garbage, waste which used to be living at
some point in time, paper/trees, fossil fuels/plants & animals compressed
over time, or digestive waste.
Growing up near Chicago in the 50's, I was surprised to observe on a recent trip
that the flat land swamps south of the city now have a 100 foot or taller
mountain near Calumet created entirely from 50 years of dumping. Chicago is not
alone for acquiring huge land fills that just keep getting bigger and more
dangerous. People have actually been killed when the abandoned land fill
underneath their homes developed a huge methane build up and exploded. This is a
serious problem that even the most pro-industry conservative is worried about.
These things really are dangerous and something does need to be done to solve
the problem.
The original answer used for centuries was merely to burn the waste. But it was
learned in the last half of the century that various toxins attached themselves
to the resulting ash and was carried away by the wind to further locations.
Enter destructive distillation. This process heats the biomass to about 1200
degrees Fahrenheit inside a vessel containing no oxygen. At this temperature, 3
things are derived: 1. Steam from any water present, 2. Volatile combustible gas
similar to methane, and 3. Activated Char. Aquarium owners will recognize the
latter as being that expensive black stuff we use to filter out the impurities
in our fish tanks.
A paper was presented by John Toman, president of Pan American Resources, Inc.,
of Pleasanton, California at the recent Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
convention. He explained what his company has done to develop equipment which
uses the DD process to tackle the worldwide land fill problem in the most
scientifically advanced fashion to date.
Merely igniting the garbage in air creates dangerous ash. It must be understood
that DD never ignites anything until after the separation process is complete.
The 3 products of this process are then handled by doing the following.
1. Using cogeneration technology the resulting hot steam is used both for its
energy and the resulting water, now distilled in purity.
2. The resulting volatile gas burns extremely clean. It is routed directly from
the DD processor unit to either an electric generator or returned to power the
burners which heat the biomass up to the necessary 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is plenty of this gas produced to serve both needs.
3. Any toxins (dioxins) that were present in the original garbage are now 100%
encapsulated in the activated char. They do not escape. The char now works
nicely as a powerful filtering media for either air or liquids.
Inorganic materials, namely rocks and metals are either recycled or returned to
where ever you throw a sterilized rock.
Mr. Towman's company has made proposals that would not only remove existing
landfill solid waste, but by doing so would provide large amounts of necessary
(formerly expensive) activated char to filter the other problem all landfills
have, that of polluted rain water run off. An amazing solution to both problems.
One would think every city in the world would be beating down his door to
acquire such a great technology. But as I have written in past columns about
every new energy technology, the monopolistic powers that control the status quo
are extremely reluctant to hand over their golden geese to the new guy on the
block, no matter how good this guy's technology is. Mr. Towman has unfortunately
been confronted with numerous bogus objections. He says 9 out of 10 cities
approached thus far show no interest at all. And the few that initially express
interest, do so only until the local business selling landfill space or UN scare
tactics gets their hands on the politicians. But the good news is a few smaller
cities have managed to surpass the bureaucratic obstacles and will be
implementing this new technology, soon.
I look forward to a day someone develops a small, portable destructive
distillation machine that one could carry with them on an RV or boat. Imagine
never having to deal with a holding tank or septic tank again and at the same
time making all the energy you need to do other stuff. Remember the closing
scene in one of the "Back to the Future" movies where the Doctor
stuffed garbage into his time machine? This is a giant step toward that very
process.
--LateNiteLeroy
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