Here are the first few paragraphs of a story that made the Drudge headlines a few weeks back(it's long but interesting, IMO).  It appera as though oil can be extracted out of almost anything, including sewage.

[b]Anything into Oil[/b]
[green]Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year [/green]
By Brad Lemley

Gory refuse, from a Butterball Turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri, will no longer go to waste. Each day 200 tons of turkey offal will be carted to the first industrial-scale thermal depolymerization plant, recently completed in an adjacent lot, and be transformed into various useful products, including 600 barrels of light oil.  

In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil.

Really.

   "This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri.  "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."

Here is the rest:
[url]http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html[/url]

Check out the fourth person on their corporate advisory board:
[url]http://www.changingworldtech.com/aboutfr.htm [/url]

Their stock is privately held and it will be interesting if they get an offer they can't refuse.

Jim

I heard about that, but it sounds too good to be true.  600 million tons of turkey guts?  That is a lot of turkey sandwiches even in China.

It sounds a lot better than the Segway - overhyped when noone knew what it even was.  Once everyone got a look at that, interest kinda evaporated.

Hm.  Even if their product streams are not as high quality as they claim, it looks like it is still a salable product.

I heard on the news that GM plans on having a practical, affordable hydrogen powered car on the market within 10 years.  For related stuff:

[url]http://www.phoenixproject.net/[/url]

As long as we don't turn Turkey guts into gun powder.

I didn't read the article, but with the emergence of bio-diesel made from soybeans and another diesel substitute made from jojoba plants, I'd hope people would see the potential of using diesel in more than just heavy duty trucks.  Other than Mercedes, VW is the only other company that I can think of that offers a diesel passenger car.  I think when people think of diesel, they think of the lousy diesels GM put out in the 80's.  IIRC they were converted gas motors.  They've gone a long way, and if they've improved on starting up in cold weather, I'm planning on my next car being a diesel.