If you ever thought exploration and production meant huge outlays of cash for oil and gas projects in far-off locales, think again. Now, with a little help from the inventive Japanese, the next energy source is as close as your nearest garbage can.Consider the work of Eicoh Co., which has commercialized a system called Yukaki that produces reclaimed oil from waste plastic. To produce the oil, Yukaki-to be familiar-first pulverizes and melts such waste plastics as polyethylene.Then Yukaki heats the plastic to some 400º C. in a thermal decomposition tank to vaporize it, whereupon the collected gas is cooled and the oil taken from it. We are told the extracted oil is the equivalent to f...