Friday, May 21, 2004

Efficiency vs. Economy

Hi Steve - Unfortunately, efficiency is not the last word in this picture. In order to make a profit from turning turkey-fat into crude oil, you need your process to be not only efficient but economical - which is a higher standard.

Let me explain what I mean. Taking their press release at face value, they have a process which is 80% efficient, meaning it creates 100 BTUs' worth of crude oil by using 20 BTUs' worth of electricity. Even if true, this does not mean they can make money from the process. In order to determine whether the process is economical in this sense, we would have to know what resources it takes to gather all of that turkey-fat in one place and process it. In addition, there are the capital costs of the turkey-fat processing plant itself to amortize over the next few years.

My guess is that they can make a profit at the current price for oil ($41 per barrel), but will have trouble if we get another oil glut.

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