# The Microwave Magician: How to get oil from just about anything
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [November 21, 2007, 9:12am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083 "2007-11-21T09:12:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JDMSIR](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JDMSIR)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 9:12am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/1 "2007-11-21T09:12:59Z")
Pretty interesting read.
> **[Best of What Was New](https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-11/best-what-was-new/)**
>
> This week, we unveiled our 20th-annual Best of What's New-our year-end list of the 100 greatest innovations in the world of science and technology. In honor of 20 glorious years of picking the best of the best, we've decided to take a look at some...
> **Green Tech**
> **THE MICROWAVE MAGICIAN**
> **Frank Pringle has found a way to squeeze oil and gas from just about anything**
>
> I’m not sure if I’m watching a magic trick, or an invention that will make the cigar-chomping 64-year-old next to me the richest man on the planet. Everything that goes into Frank Pringle’s recycling machine—a piece of tire, a rock, a plastic cup—turns to oil and natural gas seconds later. “I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me,” Pringle says without sarcasm.
> The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running).
> Pringle created the machine about 10 years ago after he drove by a massive tire fire and thought about the energy being released. He went home and threw bits of a tire in a microwave emitter he’d been working with for another project. It turned to what looked like ash, but a few hours later, he returned and found a black puddle on the floor of the unheated workshop. Somehow, he’d struck oil.
> Or rather, he had extracted it. Petroleum is composed of strings of hydrocarbon molecules. When microwaves hit the tire, they crack the molecular chains and break it into its component parts: carbon black (an ash-like raw material) and hydrocarbon gases, which can be burned or condensed into liquid fuel. Pringle figured that some gases from his microwaved tire had lingered, and the cold air in the shop had condensed them into diesel. If the process worked on tires, he thought, it should work on anything with hydrocarbons. The trick was in finding the optimum microwave frequency for each material—out of 10 million possibilities.
> Pringle has spent 10 years and $1 million homing in on frequencies for hundreds of materials. In 2004 he teamed up with engineer pal Hawk Hogan to take the machine commercial.
> Their first order is under construction in Rockford, Illinois. It’s a $5.1-million microwave machine the size of small bus called the Hawk, bound for an auto-recycler in Long Island, New York. More deals loom: The U.S. military may use Hawks in Iraq on waste such as water bottles and food containers. Oil companies are looking to the machines to gasify petroleum trapped in shale.
> Back at the shop, Pringle is still zapping new materials. A sample labeled “bituminous coal” goes in and, 15 seconds later, Pringle ignites the resulting gas. “You see,” he says, “why they might want to kill me.” —RENA MARIE PACELLA
```
[Email This](http://cgi.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/mail/mailurl2friend.cgi?group=popsci&path=/popsci/email)
[Digg](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29;) [del.icio.us](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29;) [reddit](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29;) [Fark](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29;) [Slashdot](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29;)
```
---
### Author:  [@RedrRocket](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/RedrRocket)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/2 "2007-11-21T11:42:23Z")
that seems cool. how long till the oil companies buy him out. and keep the technology?
---
### Author:  [@Blue\_Eyed\_Devil](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Blue_Eyed_Devil)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 12:06pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/3 "2007-11-21T12:06:44Z")
Isn’t that what they did in Back To The Future?
It is ironic that they are going to use it in Iraq.:biglaugh:
---
### Author:  [@Dr.Stevil](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Dr.Stevil)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 12:27pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/4 "2007-11-21T12:27:43Z")
thats pretty wild :tup:
hopefully he doesn’t sell the technology to the oil companies though. He can make a fortune and potentially save people a lot of $$$
---
### Author:  [@MaXiMuS](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/MaXiMuS)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/5 "2007-11-21T14:34:43Z")
That is a very cool idea, and i hope the technology grows and refines.
that could potentially be very good for humanity, because think of all the garbage you could take and turn into useful oil.
---
### Author:  [@JoesTypeS](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JoesTypeS)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/6 "2007-11-21T14:38:25Z")
I wonder what the % of “recycling” is…ie it takes x gallons of oil to make a tire and the machine creates y gallons
---
### Author:  [@The\_Russian](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/The_Russian)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/7 "2007-11-21T15:31:45Z")
theres a much better process for this called
Thermaldepolymerization look it up.
---
### Author:  [@Treads4Heads](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Treads4Heads)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 4:34pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/8 "2007-11-21T16:34:55Z")
well once again, how much oil is needed to generate that kinda power?
Edit ^^^ what joe said
---
### Author:  [@The\_Russian](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/The_Russian)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/the-microwave-magician-how-to-get-oil-from-just-about-anything/39083/9 "2007-11-21T18:26:22Z")
Thermaldepolymerization uses 18btus for every 100 it produces worth of fuel.
88% efficiency.