Letters to the Editor (Oct. 27)

Dog and pony show

Editor:

The mid-August dog-and-pony show by PlastikGas, of Dallas, has produced nothing; there is no there there. Six weeks after the photo op with Gov. Lujan Grisham, there is still no mention of New Mexico or Los Lunas on the PlastikGas website.

The temporary demonstration plant near the courthouse in Los Lunas has all but disappeared; there are no identifying signs. They even took the sign with the street number down from the fence, and the equipment that remains is covered with a tarp.

The in-place machinery has a capacity to process 100 pounds of plastic grocery bags into 15 gallons of high-quality usable fuels per day. What is their plan to gather such raw material?

The Los Lunas recycle yard has signs on the big bins for plastic that reject grocery bags — it’s good location for a PlastikGas collection box. Same for Albertsons and Smith’s grocery stores. They haven’t had their used bag collection boxes out for a long time.

Would a PlastikGas collection box at those locations produce 100 pounds per day? Try also our three Walgreens stores and the Lowe’s grocery in Belen.

At minimum, PlastikGas needs to put a large steel collection container outside their gate, set up for drive-thru donation of bags and be prepared for the need of a second steel container as traffic increases.

“Proof-of-concept” will only take place when the plant is visible and in operation. Is a plant this size economically viable? Doesn’t matter. First demonstrate that the process and the technology actually work, then figure out how much to scale up in order to make “x” gallons per day produce a profit versus such-and-such price for fossil-fuel gasoline in USA.

Until that happens, what PlastikGas has brought us is a bunch of Texas oil men “green-washing” themselves.

G.E. Nordell

Rio Communities

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