A. Now -- do you have a question, sir?
Q. Yeah, I do. Can -- when did this discovery take place? When did you first have your catalyst developed?
A. Mr. Rue, my catalyst came into its embryo state ten, 12 years ago.
Q. All right. And where were you operating? Where were you experimenting with this process at the time?
A. Daytona Beach, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Dominican Republic. Gosh, what's the -- Vicksburg -- Vicksburg, Mississippi. Various places.
Q. All right.
A. In my kitchen.
Q. Okay.
A. In my garage.
Q. Well, while you were sleeping?
A. I do some of my best thinking when I'm sleeping, sir.
Q. Yeah, that's what I thought.
A. Sleep is entirely overrated. A human being only needs four hours sleep. The rest of it you're into a state where your mind is most active. And if you know how to train that mind, you can utilize it to the nth degree.
Q. I understand. The embryotic state of your catalyst?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was that -- where were you on the continuum of developing your catalyst from the embryotic state until what it is now when you moved to Port Gibson?
A. I'm sorry, I don't know that I heard that question correctly.
Q. Well, it's not a very good question.
A. Well, I thought so, but I was being kind.
Q. Let me try again. What was the -- when did you -- as I understand it, you have two kinds of reactors. You have the continuous batch reactor which is the 65-foot-long tube. And then you have the mini reactor; is that correct?
THE WITNESS: Would you please read back his statement, because I don't understand what he's trying to say. And I really want to understand it.
A. Or if you could repeat it, whichever you prefer.
Q. (By Mr. Rue) Yeah, do you -- when did you first develop the mini reactor?
A. I don't know, 24 years ago in my kitchen.
Q. Okay. When did you develop --
A. It was a pressure cooker.
Q. All right. When did you develop the mini reactor as it is today in its general configuration as it is today?
A. I have no direct recollection as to that time frame, but it was within the last, you know, ten years.
Q. Okay. And what was the state of your process -- first of all, how did you -- how did you come to move to Port Gibson, Mississippi?
A. I'm afraid to say. I've got a Mississippi lawyer.
Q. All right.
A. I was induced by the mayor of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Came down to me and said, I hear you cando all these marvelous things and make fuel out of tires and any organic material. And I said, yeah. And he says, what can you do with chicken litter? And I looked at him sort of the way you are looking at me right now. And I said what the hell is chicken litter? You know, I'm a Florida boy. I buy chickens at Publix. Well, you don't know what Publix is, but it's a really nice supermarket in Florida. So he explained to me that basically chicken litter is chicken shit collected at these hen houses, and they have this massive problem with it. Tyson and, you know, all these other people. They used to just spread it on the cotton fields until the nitrates got -- concentration got so high that the EPA stopped it. And I told the representative of the mayor's office that, gentlemen, I'm sure I can do something with it, but I've never seen it. I would know nothing about it. Send me a 5-gallon pail, and I'll let you know. So they sent me a 5-gallon pail. And I ran it through my mini reactor and got a combustible gas out of it and reduced the volume by, I was going to say 90 percent, but I have no way of proving 90 percent. So I substantially reduced the mass between 70 and 90 percent of its original volume. I produced a inert -- inert means – let him find out -- an inert carbon which could be either utilized or disposed of without any harm to the environment. And a -- for the sake of explanation only, I am neither insinuating in any way, shape or form that I was producing pharmaceutical grade water from chicken shit. But I will say that since the moisture in water was vaporized in a vacuum and in -- distilled, that one could, not that I would, knowing where it came from, drink it or use it for -- it was -- it was pure. So I reported this.
Q. Now, you said you got -- you got three products out of this, then? You got the inert --
A. Carbon.
Q. You got water?
A. Got water.
Q. And what else?
A. And a flammable gas.
Q. All right.
A. Okay. But that is the way you or I would have looked at this. The mayor and the mayor's representative did not look at it in that venue. They could really care about the flammable gas or the pure water or the carbon. All they wanted to do is get rid of the chicken litter, which I did. So they said, you know, we understand that, you know, you've got a 5-ton-a-day reactor that you're shipping to Florida. Ship it to Mississippi. We'll give you, you know, $30 million in grants to build a system capable of doing 250 tons a day. We'll give you tax credits. You won't have to pay taxes for 20 years. We're going to give you a building. We're going to give you -- we'll have classes at our technical school to help train your employees. I mean, they offered me this -- everything. So I started disassembling my 5-foot – my 5-ton-a-day reactor.
Q. And let me stop you there. You said you were disassembling it. Where was it located at the time?
A. At the time, it was in New Mexico.
Q. Okay. Albuquerque or near Albuquerque?
A. You know exactly where it's at.
Q. Okay.
A. I mean, why play games?
Q. All right.
A. Gee.
Q. And we're not playing games, Mr. Rivera.
THE WITNESS: Do I have stupid written across my forehead, Alice?
Q. (By Mr. Rue) Now, your 5-ton-a-day reactor.
THE WITNESS: He doesn't either.
Q. (By Mr. Rue) Your 5-ton-a-day reactor. What was the size of that? Tell me -- give me some idea of what it was like.
A. Some idea? Rather than risk making a misstatement or anything that you can misinterpret, I will do you one better. I will cause to be delivered a videotape of the system in operation in 1977 or '79 or '70 something.
Q. I'd be delighted to see it.
A. Very good.
Q. Let me --
A. Would you like to see a picture of our wedding? I've got that here, too, on video.
Q. No, I don't want to see that. They don't need that.
THE WITNESS: Alice, I'm sorry, honey.
Q. (By Mr. Rue) Yeah.
THE WITNESS: Some people have no couth.
Q. (By Mr. Rue) That's all right. It's not my business.
A. That never stopped you before.
Q. It certainly had.
OCR extract
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