The problem
The wheel is often touted as one of the most important tools ever invented. In addition, cars allow travel across vast tracts of land and their commercialization cannot be overstated. However, tires are an environmental noise. They are not biodegradable and difficult to dispose of. Worse, up to 300 million tires are thrown away each year in America alone. Shockingly, less than 300 million is accounted for by every scrap tire produced in the country. Up to 10% of all tires manufactured do not meet strict manufacturing and safety standards. These failed tires are typically classified as industrial waste and not end-of-life tires. Nevertheless, they have to be disposed of every year.
The challenges with scrap tires don’t stop there. Microplastics from tires end up in water bodies and oceans. When standing, tires collect rainwater, which is a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, which can transmit West Nile Virus. Tires contain fossil fuels. So when a pile of tires catches fire, it can be difficult to put out and hold for long.
There are currently several ways to dispose of tires, and each method has its own implications. The Environmental Protection Agency even has a dedicated page for tire disposal. As of now, the top three ways to get rid of tires are: burning, burying, and grinding. None of these methods are very effective or efficient. Burning tires produces numerous toxins; buried tires leach chemicals into the soil; Ground tires make crumb rubber for playgrounds, but the jury is still out on the potential health effects.
These three ways to dispose of scrap tires are not effective enough to have a significant impact on the ever-growing supply. The state of Colorado is home to the largest scrap tire mountains in the country. Whether it’s shredding, scrap tire fees, or legislation, no matter what Colorado is trying to do, more scrap tires are produced than recycled. This problem is not unique to Colorado; Nabipur, India is stuck with a significant amount of western tires they burned. The nation of Kuwait has one of the largest tire graveyards in the world at 42 million tires. There are some companies that are helping to recycle the old tires: many of the solutions involve disassembling the tires to make consumer goods. 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 a year – which sounds great until you realize it would take over 14 years to recycle all the tires and that includes not the amount of end-of-life tires created during that time. (Remember that in the US alone, up to 300 million scrap tires are produced each year.) So what can be done about this massive environmental problem?
Solving the tire problem
Burning, burying or grinding tires is not a truly environmentally friendly way to dispose of them. This is where Product Recovery Technology International (PRTI) comes in. PRTI was founded in 2013 to solve the global problem of scrap tires. The company developed a patented thermal demanufacturing process that eliminates end-of-life tires by converting them into valuable sources of energy and steel.
Chris Hare is the CEO of PRTI and his company operates a scrap tire operation that breaks down scrap tires into components and energy sources that can be sold or used on site. The process uses 30-foot-tall vertical cylinders that heat the tires enough to turn the materials into gas. PRTI collects the gas, condenses it and turns it into oil. The entire recovery 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 most don’t even know we have.”
Hare shared that PRTI’s goal is “to address a range of issues under one roof, rather than separate companies.” By off-site, the company would 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 those fuels and turn them into heat, steam, or electricity.
Use the energy efficiently
PRTI began its journey trying to solve the tire waste stream problem. Hare explained, “Each discarded street tire has the energy of nearly three gallons of oil. We see a tire as if it were a round battery.” Through the demanufacturing process, the company is able to use the energy stored in these “round batteries” and by creating a microgrid of 8 to 10 MW per site to use. With the advice of their former CEO, Jason Williams, PRTI built a small data center to mine Bitcoin using the energy from scrap tires.
(Photo/PRTI)
Due to the industrial nature of their work, the data centers are built on-site in an industrial area, eliminating any noise pollution issues. Hare recognizes that PRTI is just a small contribution to solving a very big 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 usable source of energy .
The company wants to use this energy to build microgrids. Hare said they “hope to be a backstop for coal, nuclear and gas.” He believes: “Microgrids are the future. There are eight substations that could take away much of the power generation in the US.” The creation of microgrids is shifting the focus of power generation back to a local level.
time to grow
Until recently, PRTI flew under the radar with its trial and plans. According to Hare, the company wanted to be sure they had a viable product first that would effectively solve the tire problem. To date, PRTI has processed 50 million pounds of tires, which equates to approximately two million tires. Now they’re focused on investing to build their next location in Virginia, but their growth isn’t limited to the US; The company is in talks with Australia, countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe and America. In addition, they are in the planning phase of developing 171 additional plants in the United States with parallel international opportunities.
This company solves a decades-old environmental problem, creates a source of energy in the process, and then uses that energy to mine Bitcoin. This shreds the mainstream media narrative that Bitcoin is a net negative for the environment. Bitcoin offers a novel way to harness energy that would otherwise lie in heaps outside of major cities. Viewed through this lens, we can see why more places are needed to mine bitcoin while reducing scrap tires in the US and around the world.
In conclusion, Hare said, “If we can contribute a piece to solving this many-headed hydra, then that’s fine with us. And if we can create more awareness about bitcoin, that’s a nice add-on.”
How soon will it be before the average person sees bitcoin mining as a solution to fiat-generated waste? Not soon enough.
This is a guest post by Craig Deutsch. The opinions expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
