# Anything into oil?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 31, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216 "2003-07-31T20:37:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216/1 "2003-07-31T20:37:00Z")

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Here’s something that, if true, could pretty much revolutionize… well, a whole lotta things: a machine that can turn almost any carbon-based substance into [oil](http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html).

It also spits out natural gas and purified minerals.

> [@](#):
>
> Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.

It’s also fairly efficient - it takes 15 BTUs to process 100 BTUs worth of stuff. And cheap - it’s estimated that it can produce oil for about $8-12 per barrel.

And it apparently is already working. Okay, so we now have a cheap, nigh limitless way of producing oil and gas, with a method of waste disposal (even toxic waste and bio-weapons, apparently, according to the article) thrown in for good measure. Or do we? Is there something missing here? It sounds almost too good to be true, and I’d be extremely skeptical if there wasn’t already a machine chugging away in Philly. Can anyone more knowledgeable tear this apart? Can it really work? Is there some fatal flaw somewhere? Because if this is for real… wow.  
Jeff

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**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216/2 "2003-07-31T20:56:13Z")

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I read that article with great interest when it came out.

Not only could it address oil supply issues, but it could dramatically impact greenhouse emissions as well.

The only detraction I’ve heard to date is that the oil generated by this process is not exactly the same as what’s used today and one expert was predicting there would be no market for it. I believe, however that said expert was supplied by the oil industry.

I can’t imagine it would be that hard to compensate for minor differences. Bear in mind, however, that the Bush administration is likely to take the word of the oil industry very seriously.

The company’s web site is at [http://www.changingworldtech.com/](http://www.changingworldtech.com/)

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**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216/3 "2003-07-31T22:48:10Z")

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Do a search. We’ve covered this extensively. Look’s promising, jury’s still out, wait and see, it might not scale economically.

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**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-into-oil/192216/4 "2003-07-31T23:19:57Z")

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Ah, sorry. I tried doing a search, but since you can’t search for words with fewer than 4 letters, anything search with “oil” in it didn’t fare well, and everything else either turned up nothing, or else hundreds of hits. I’ll try again.  
Jeff