Has anyone heard of, or have any experience with this company called WETCO? Renewable, Biodiesel, Oil, Gas, Gasoline, Diesel, Fuels - USA, China and Worldwide Licenses Renewable Diesel Fuel Licences | Tacoma, WA | Los Angeles, CA

If I am understanding it correctly, they are producing fuel from waste which includes tires, plastics, and grease. 99% of the feedstock is converted to fuel. It has a higher BTU rating than pump #2, and burns more completely with fewer emissions, by 80%. It has better cold weather properties than biodiesel. Like biodiesel it blends readily with pump #2.

It is being sold south of me in Tacoma as off road fuel. It says to bring your own containers. Current price is $2.08/gallon. That's about $.75/gallon cheaper than #2 around here.

 

I have not, but is very interesting. I need to read up on the link you posted.

 

thanks for sharing have to look into this

 

Very interesting.

 

This has peaked my curiosity to say the least

 

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting

 

I'd buy a little and first throw it in the fridge, then freezer to see if there is any gelling issues, and at what point.

Part of the reason it's cheaper is there's no on road taxes attached to it. Is it dyed red? Did you ask why it's not sold as on road fuel?

 

I too am in agreement on this...

 

Correct. The current fuel tax in Washington state is $.38, so that would bring their advertised sell price closer to what #2 is selling for here. It is amber, almost what biodiesel looks like.

I finally called the local number and it was answered by what sounded like one of their workers. He said that the current advertised price is the result of an overage in production from one of their contracts. He said it was someone in the marine industry, and that if I wanted to meet at a delivery location at the Port of Seattle when he makes a run, he would be willing to fill my drum for the advertised price. So far, this is all sounding sketchy. I asked him when on-road fuel would be available, and he explained to me that they're still in the process of getting state and federal approval and developing stations for public sale.

So who knows? After that phone conversation, I am questioning the legitimacy of the company and the product. If I can find more information about them and what the product is actually made from, (the website is a bit vague) I will bring a drum to fill and run it.

What I am most intrigued and hopeful about is that they claim are taking waste, which includes plastic, as feedstock. If true, and if it can be done sustainably, then they've really got something big.

 

You are correct - potentially. I was just at an paper industry support foundation meeting this past week, and we had a chance to review a lot of recycling statistics. Evidently, and this was unexpected news to me, the current recycle rate for plastics is only about 30% as compared to 80-90% for most paper products.

What that means is that there is an abundance of growth opportunity remaining for someone who wants to specifically capture some of the plastic recycle market. However, it also means that even though there is an abundance of the material potentially available for this conversion process, there is also a LOT of work still left to perform just to make that potential resource actually available... folks just are not yet on board enough to have the recycle rates where they should be.

 

In the county I live in all recycling is free of charge. If you have "trash" then you buy a large or medium sized bag for $1 or .50 respectively and then throw it away at the transfer station. So, we simply have 2 trash cans in our house, one is for recycling and one is for trash that cannot be recycled.

I think if a lot of places took this sort of approach we would see a steep incline in the recycling area. Make it worth while to the individual that doesn't consider trash to be a future problem.

It would be great if we could turn used plastic into fuel. I think that is a much more suitable answer to renewable energy than batteries or solar.

 

In our house I have two bins 1 for recycling and one for trash that is unable to be recycled, and usually we fill our recycle bin well before the trash bin (usually the trash is only 1/3 full on trash day)

 

I read through a few of the WETCO patents and I have to admit, I was a little confused on their actual product. It seems like they patented a 'recipe' for mixing renewable fuels with non-renewable fuels instead of a process for generating non-renewable fuels. Was just a cursory glance but still wasn't impressed in their messaging.

I also question the economic viability of using plastics as feedstocks as I believe plastics would gain more $$ being recycled into more plastic instead of diesel fuel blends. But, I'm not in that business so maybe I'm wrong. I could see where they would put a small plant next to a city recycling business where they could digest all un-recyclable plastics (styro-foam, bags, coat hangers, random plastic things, etc.) but I see this as a way to reduce landfill space instead of making $ on the feedstock. Again, maybe I'm wrong as this is not my forte.

The other feedstock they talked about must have been methane as they discussed using sewage to generate feedstocks. This sounds great except you have to redesign and rebuild sewage treatment plants to harvest the methane. Again, it's boils down to $$$. And since we now exporting dirt-cheap natural gas (methane), I'm not seeing the economic advantage for harvesting methane (without government incentives, etc.)

I agree this is all very interesting and I'm all for reducing the dependence on traditional fossil fuels- hopefully this company can make a small dent for us. Solar panels have been a similar renewable energy source but with the current price of oil/natural gas into the foreseeable future, there is just not a net-positive payback using solar energy. Hence all the government incentives to further solar panel production and usage to utilize "free" solar energy.

 

I hope to be proven wrong. I do not have faith in this.

 

Correct, but to get the real info on this, we would need to know more about what "plastics" are eligible. 20 years ago I saw an industry take waste polypropylene for free and use it in a product engineered to use this as an additive. 10 years ago, those folks were having to purchase the same scraps they used to get for free.

In the initial phases of this process, saving someone a dump fee by taking it off their hands makes things cost effective. Once demand picks up for the supply available, the price goes up.

If the plastic diesel already costs in line with #2 when there was an overage, what happens in a few years if more folks start this process and the plastic recycle market starts costing money?

Long term it's not a bad thing, but as long as crude oil is cheap, it will remain hard to beat.