[Terrapreta] (tire pyrolysis)

[James Thomas]

Re: the tire pyrolysis question:  A company headed by a New Zealand 
Environmental Scientist  is attempting to do this very thing locally 
here in Washington State; with  "Carbon Black" as a market product  
syngas used to fuel the process once it gets going good and hot 
(parasitic consumption) and the remainder used to generate electricity 
for the grid and the biooil for market. They were planning on sinking 
about $25 million into the process. Many people would be employed; air 
pollution control would be a key point; all kinds of good things 
environmentally were proposed. But in reality the NIMBY (Not in my 
backyard) mental paradigm squelched the proposal, at least temporarily.

With regard to the steel in the steel belts it was proposed that  the 
tires would come in in bales, then chipped , then subjected  to 
pyrolysis and the steel chips collected after pyrolysis . I am not sure 
how the char and steel would be separated, but it appears not to be too 
much of an obstacle, I suspect that the char would simply crumble away 
from the metal chips. Bottom line is this is already being thought of as 
a way to reuse all of the waste tires in Washington State and 
entrepreneurial spirit is attempting to make it happen. But the NIMBY 
effect is limiting the potential.

It has been suggested to put in this type of facility well away from 
populated areas, but my question is " if this is proposed, where would 
the employees live? Do you expect employees to live in an isolated 
community way out in the desert, just so they can have a job with no 
other life or other "benefits of civilization"? Sounds like the chorus 
in the old "Tennessee" Ernie Ford song about sixteen tons of coal per 
day being the miner's output:   "I owe my soul to the company store". Or 
do you expect them to commute or take a shuttle daily from a population 
center? Then where is the proposed environmental benefit of less overall 
fuel consumption?  Pyrolysis obviously needs a better public relations 
effort to be accepted by the public. People just don't have an  
understanding that pyrolysis of tires or medical waste or gasification 
or any of the other similar processes is not the same as "Burning Tires" 
. The burning tire image reinforced on the mental video screens by 
images of Palestinian youths burning tires in protest of political 
actions is permanently  embedded in the mental paradigm of most modern 
urbanites, in my opinion. "Pyrolysis" is just a big  fancy word for more 
pollution  in this mental paradigm.