the problem
The wheel is often described as one of the most important tools ever invented. Furthermore, cars allow travel across vast tracts of land and cannot be overcommodified. However, tires are an environmental nuisance. It does not biodegrade and is difficult to dispose of properly. Even worse, up to 300 million tires are dumped every year in America alone. Shockingly, 300 million does not even represent all the waste tires generated in the country. Up to 10% of all tires manufactured are not subject to strict manufacturing and safety standards. These damaged tires are usually classified as industrial waste and not as waste tires. But it still has to be disposed of every year.
The challenges with waste tires don’t stop there. Microplastics from tires end up in waterways and oceans. When the tires sit, rainwater collects, which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes that may carry West Nile virus. Tires contain fossil fuels, so if a pile of tires catches fire, they can be difficult to put out and last a long time.
There are several methods that are currently scraping tires and each method has its own consequences. The Environmental Protection Agency even has a page dedicated to tire disposal. As of now, the three main ways to dispose of tires are: burning, burial, and grinding. None of these methods are considered very effective or efficient. Burning tires produces many toxins; Buried tires seep chemicals into the ground; Crushed tires make crumb rubber for stadiums, but the verdict is still out on the potential health effects.
These three methods of destroying scrap tires are not effective enough to make a significant impact on the ever-growing supply. Colorado is home to the largest piles of waste tires in the country. Whether it’s shredding, lost tire fees or legislation, no matter what Colorado tries to do, more waste tires are produced than they are recycled. This problem is not unique to Colorado. Nappur, India, stuck with so many tires from the west they resorted to burning it. The State of Kuwait has one of the largest tire cemeteries in the world with 42 million tires. There are some companies that help recycle old tires: Many solutions involve tire smashing to create consumer products. In Kuwait, one company in particular is helping: Recycling company EPSCO Global General Trading claims to be able to recycle up to 3 million tires per year – which sounds great until one realizes that it would take over 14 years to recycle all tires and that no Includes the amount of scrap tires generated during that period. (Remember, the United States alone produces up to 300 million waste tires annually.) What can be done about this huge environmental issue?
Tire problem solving
None of the options for burning, burying, or grinding tires is a truly environmentally friendly way to dispose of them. This is where Product Recovery Technology International (PRTI) comes into the picture. PRTI was founded in 2013 to try to solve the global problem of waste tires. The company has pioneered a patented Thermal DeManufacturing process that eliminates damaged tires by converting them into valuable sources of energy and steel.
Chris Hare is CEO of PRTI and his company operates a tire disposal process that breaks down waste tires into components and energy sources that can be sold or used on site. The process uses 30-foot vertical cylinders that heat the tires enough to turn the material into gas. PRTI collects, condenses, and converts gas into oil. The entire remanufacturing process takes 11 hours and results in solid fuels, oil, gas and steel. Hare explained, “The essence of PRTI is that we have a solution to a problem that not many people even know we have.”
Hare shared that PRTI’s goal was to “address a number of problems under one roof rather than separate companies.” By taking products off the site, the company will add to the carbon problem it is trying to solve. Instead, the company is trying to answer the question of how to build a power system to take these fuels and convert them into heat, steam, or energy.
Efficient use of energy
PRTI began their journey trying to solve the waste stream problem with tires. “Every road tire thrown in has the energy of roughly three gallons of oil. The way we look at a tire is that it’s a round battery,” Hare explained. Through the process of remanufacturing, the company is able to harness and use the energy stored in these “round batteries” by creating a microgrid of 8 to 10 megawatts per site. With the advice of ex-CEO Jason Williams, PRTI built a small bitcoin mining data center using energy from scrap tires.
Due to the industrial nature of their work, data centers are set up on site in an industrially designated area, eliminating any noise pollution issues. Hare understands that PRTI is only a small part of solving a very large problem, but by expanding its operations, the company will be able to process more tires, remove them from the environment and turn them into a viable energy source.
With this energy, the company intends to build small networks. They “hope to be a pillar of coal, nuclear, and gas,” Hare said. He thinks, “Microgrids are the future. There are eight substations that can consume a significant amount of energy production in the US” By creating small grids, the focus of energy production moves to the local scale.
It’s time to grow up
Until recently, PRTI has been flying under the radar with its operations and plans. According to Hare, the company wanted to make sure it had a viable product that would be effective in solving the tire problem. To date, PRTI has handled 50 million pounds of tires, which is about two million tires. Now, they are focusing on investing to build their next location in Virginia, but their growth is not limited to the United States; The company is in discussions with Australia and countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe and the Americas. Additionally, they are in the planning stages of developing an additional 171 plants across the United States with international opportunities in parallel.
This company is solving a decades-old environmental problem, creating an energy source in the process, and then using that energy to mine bitcoin. This is tearing up the mainstream media narrative about Bitcoin being negative for the environment. Bitcoin offers a new way to use energy that would otherwise be sitting in a pile outside of major cities. Looking at this lens, we can see why more places are needed to mine bitcoin while simultaneously reducing wasted frames in the US and around the world.
In conclusion, Hare said, “If we can be a part of the solution to this multi-headed hydra that is fine on our part. If we can raise awareness of Bitcoin, that is a great addition.”
How soon before the average citizen sees bitcoin mining as a solution to fiat waste? Not soon enough.
This is a guest post by Craig Deutsch. The opinions expressed are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.