[ExI] Trash to Fuel

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 11:00 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 9:07 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > Nice!  Would you like help getting it written up and submitted to fund
> > a feasibility study, either for DARPA or the DOE?
>
> Yes.  This project needs all the help it can get.

Cool.  I'm going to have to noodle on it, and ask some contacts of
mine.  We're already into the part of the year where people start
taking holiday vacations.  If you don't hear back from me by
mid-January please poke me, but I'll at least try to ID some potential
funding opportunities this could be proposed to.

>  (Which will
> > probably be needed before funding for a pilot plant could be
> > obtained.)
>
> Getting Federal money for anything that involves renewable energy is
> going to be difficult till we get a new administration.  But trying
> does not hurt.

Yeah...i'm thinking, de-emphasize the renewable angle.  Play up that
the site has good access to set up a new-technology power plant.  If
they misread that as "nuclear", it's on them.  (I don't think many
will literally make that misreading, but some might.)  I'm also going
to see if state funding is viable: the megasite I mentioned is being
funded primarily by North Carolina, not the feds.

That said, the DOD doesn't seem to share that energy source bias.
Fuel's fuel; so long as it eventually shows up in the form they want,
at a price and reliability they like, they don't care as much where it
came from.

> Depending on the product mix, access to a fuel pipeline would be helpful.

We'll see.  I doubt we could get access to an existing pipeline for
this sort of new project.  Back-of-the-envelope, trucks make more
sense for the site I mentioned at first - for the pilot plant.  (They
add about 5-6 cents cost per gallon, including fuel used for transport
and everything.)

The main problem is finding a customer for ~6 million barrels of
diesel per year.  Norfolk might use that much, and developing for the
Navy may get the initial R&D funding needed.  Setting up a second
plant to make jet fuel for LAX would be an eventual scale-up.