Dr. Yuan-Hui Jhong and his colleagues have developed a process to turn pig manure into crude oil, NBC5's Phil Rogers reported on Monday. The process turns doing what nature does over millions of years into a 40-minute process.

"In this research, actually, we mimic Mother Nature's process to process to produce the crude oil," Jhong said. "We try to identify the right conditions to make this happen in a short period of time."

Those conditions include the perfect mix of temperature and pressure in a reactor developed after hundreds of tests. In the end, about 70 percent of the pig's manure converts to pure crude oil.

"We don't need to buy swine manure," Jhong said. "It's there, and in some cases, people need to pay you for getting rid of it."

Source: nbc5