For five years they've tinkered with it, constructed it, and tweaked it.

Now, a Berthold-area farmer and his crew are ready to take their invention into production.

Their invention feeds discarded rubber tires into one end, and spits energy out the other end - in a process that the inventors say recovers almost every bit of energy expended to produce the tires.

Jim Olson reports from the Alan Lee farm west of Berthold.

(Jim Olson, KX News) It's a contraption that has grown to take up an entire building on Alan Lee's farm

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "We built this building and then we expanded it so I built another addition on the building, we had to cut the wall out."


But don't let the homemade look fool you, Lee and the operations manager of this new company called Delta Energy, say it's a breakthrough in a very "in" business - green energy

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "We've had major tire companies, major rubber companies, belt companies, Fortune 500 companies doing other things. They've all been up to look at it. Some of them are on their third visit, fourth visit. They're doing their due diligence as to whether we're real and whether our patents hold water and whether we have the customers we say we do. And we're passing their tests so we're excited about that."


They've come from around the world to inspect these pipes and heaters and distillers

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "I picked one guy up at the airport at midnight and he came out here and they were running the plant and he wanted to stay. I was tired, I wanted to go home. He said I've been chasing this thing for 16 years and he was excited about it."


What's the big attraction? It seems Delta Energy has answered a question that scientists have been trying to answer for decades

(Duane Erickson, Delta Energy) "We're actually doing some things that people have been trying for since the 60s, for 50-60 years. We've been able to accomplish what they haven't been able to do."


What they've accomplished is a system to take one of the world's biggest pollution problems - discarded tires - some 300-million of them each year - and turn them into usable fuel -

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "Each tire produces about 2.8, or the equivalent of 2.8 gallons of oil."


Lee says 99 percent of the original tire is turned into something useful, from natural gas to diesel fuel to carbon that can be reused in the rubber and plastics industry

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "It's energy friendly because we're returning fuel."


But it's not a process that was arrived at easily - this gadget - Lee says it doesn't really have a name - they call it "the reactor" - was five years in the making - with many bumps along the road.

(Alan Lee, Delta Energy) "If we don't solve this problem, we gotta quit. Then we'd have a good test or a good run and get excited again." (Duane Erickson, Delta Energy) "It seemed like we could always see the light at the end of the tunnel and didn't think it was a train at the time."


But now, Delta Energy is ready to break out - Lee and Erickson say they're very close to getting the major financial support from a big-name company they need to spread out this technology across the nation. It's a technology that was made possible by a secret chemical compound that unlocked the door that was keeping rubber recycling from being clean and profitable.

(Duane Erickson, Delta Energy) "That's our magic powder."


We'll tell you about that tomorrow. Near Berthold, Jim Olson, KX News.

Lee says once a major investor is on board, the systems will likely be built around the nation and around the world to reduce pollution from waste tires. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list