Recycling Machine Miraculously Transforms Auto Parts into Fuel
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.17.07
Hot off our coverage of the latest in advanced optical sorting technologies now being incorporated into recycling facilities, we bring you news of a new eco-friendly auto scrap recycling machine that turns car waste into fuel.
The HAWK 10, invented by the Global Resource Corporation and recently put to use by Gershow Recycling, is 100% emission- and pollutant-free and can reduce landfill waste by close to 65%. In addition, it recycles excess metal that businesses can then reuse and uses a system of high microwave frequencies to convert "autofluff" (i.e. textiles, foams, plastics, etc) into oil and gas.
While most companies tend to dispose of the residue (dubbed automobile shredder residue, or ASR) produced from the recovered steel by dumping it into a landfill, polluting the surroundings and wasting valuable components in the process, the HAWK 10 gasifies the different materials and turns them into 80% light combustible gases and 20% oil. The machine fuels its next round by cycling the gas through a closed-loop system to use it, thus avoiding the production of emissions.
"Imagine running a major industrial process like recycling with negligible fuel costs and zero emissions. It seems like the stuff of science fiction, but it's real, it's proven, and it's available right now to companies like Gershow who grasp the importance of fighting global warming," said Kevin Gershowitz, Executive Vice President of Gershow Recycling
Company officials expect the machine will pay for itself within a year of being put to use by taking advantage of renewable energy tax credits.
UPDATE: As several of the commenters rightly noted, this technology certainly sounds too good to be true so we advise readers to take it with a large grain of salt (particularly since, as Keith R notes, HAWK 10's inventors, Global Resource Corporation, seem to be a shell corporation).
Via ::Zero-Emissions Recycling Machine Turns Auto Parts to Fuel
See also: ::Recycling Plasterboard, ::TiTech's Innovative Recycling System, ::Has Recycling Jumped the Shark?, ::Incentive Based Recycling by RecycleBank
It does sound like it comes from a scifi novel. In fact in the Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanly Robinson consideres something very similar. This kind of technology is so critically important for the world, I'm glad it's finally appearing and hope that it's rapidly expanded across all waste.
There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. A 100% recycle exhaust gas stream can not be sustained over time. Anyone who has had chemical engineering 101 level courses ought to know this.
We are not told if this is a batch or semi-continuous process, In either case, no one should be taking these claims at face value without seeing a peer reveiwed liife cycle energy balance over multiple batches or over an extended run of semi-continuous functioning. The energy balance must include an accounting for embodied energy in the feedstock as well as the output. Moreover, I'd not trust it unless I saw the state air emission permit limits in parallel.
My guess is this the next thing we'll hear about is a request for public funding.
Neat. I think most of this tech has been around for ages, but we didn't feel the need for it or it cost too much to make economical sense.
When did Treehugger become one of the herd of blogs and websites that simply and swallows hook, line and sinker what business press releases say and then regurgitate it with a reference/link to an earlier Treehugger piece and a pithy remark or two? No probing questions, no checking, nada, just a PR re-print?
This was essentially lifted from Greenbiz, who essentially lifted it from Climatebiz (which is associated with Greenbiz), who essentially lifted it from the PR newswire who got it all from the company itself. In fact, you can get nothing of substance on this company on the internet that can't be traced back to the company itself .
It doesn't give you pause that, according to its required SEC filing, this company was a shell corporation until late last year? That it's a penny stock? That it claims to have numerous "miraculous" applications for their "patent-pending" (note the pending) tech, but none has yet gotten beyond the "developmental" stage? That it was recently delisted from an OTC board? That the auditor Bagell, Josephs & Company, LLC recently expressed doubts about the company continuing as a going concern?
Treehugger, you need to stop being PR flacks/parrots.
This product was listed as a finalist in Popular Science magazine's 2007 best of what's new in the green tech section. I hope that PopSci did some DD first to verify credibility that everyone is questioning here.
I think the bigger problem is that if it works you are producing a burnable hydrocarbon (gas, oil) that would otherwise be buried and in a way 'sequestered'.
Remember when the "stuff" in Flash Gordon was Sci-fi foolishness? Amazing how much of it is in use today!!