G-spotter Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 cowabunga dude Japanese scientists make gasoline and vanilla from cow shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foraker Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Cost effective? Significant impact? 515000+ tons of poo is about 1.65 million gallons of gasoline per year. or 4520 gallons per day. Which I think is about half of a tanker truck per day.... This does not take into account the cost of using gas to transport gas-making poo nor the cost of 'unspecified catalysts'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 Yeah, and they will never improve the efficiency or reduce the cost of the process right, which is why your calculator still uses vaccuum tubes instead of transistors! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 Not to mention the eco-cachet of vanilla scented sham-POO. Sure to be a big seller in India! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenderfour Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 There's a certain leap of faith that was taken there - let's put cowshit in a pressure cooker and see what happens! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foraker Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 not all things have the same possible factors of improvement that electronics have shown, so that's kind of a poor example. you could turn poo into diamonds if you wanted to probably but what would be the point? just like being able to extract vanilla from poo..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 I would call a yield of 1 volume of gasoline per 100 volumes of dung to be pretty shitty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-spotter Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 So what processes now in use have never been improved upon since they were first demonstrated to be technically feasible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dechristo Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 I'd like the opportunity to step barefoot in a fresh pile of vanilla poo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foraker Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 I'm all for alternative energy, I'm just saying they ought to consider that maybe they might get bang for the buck in other ways. It's all fine and dandy to keep researching the idea, I'd just hate to see them waste several hundred million dollars developing a poo-refining plant only to watch tons of poo go in and a trickle of gas come out. This also raises another question: what happens to the tons of poo that goes in? What are the by products of the process? Is it all CO2 and methane and what about the solids? What do you do with that? You have to ask these kinds of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dechristo Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 what happens to the tons of poo that goes in? What are the by products of the process? wheat thins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foraker Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 what happens to the tons of poo that goes in? What are the by products of the process? wheat thins POTD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerJ Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 The cynic in me wants to know how many more millions of acres of rain forest would be cut down to raise cows to poop. Would we then genetically engineer cows to produce more poop? What about Canadian Geese? They seem to shit a lot? -r Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHarry Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 What about Canadians? They seem to be full of shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkeller Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 How about this then? Ananova: Inventor turns dead cats into diesel A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats. Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers. They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter. He said the resulting "high quality bio-diesel" costs just 15 pence per litre. Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank. He said: "I tank my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems." Annelise Krauss of the Dresden Animal Protection Association blasted Koch's new diesel though, saying: "This is as bad as experimenting on animals." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glacier Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 (edited) Thermal Conversion Process - pilot plants in operation in Philidelphia and Carthage, MO. Article - "If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water." Edited March 7, 2006 by glacier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkeller Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Biodiesel is people! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerJ Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 "If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water." Is there an online conversion calculator available yet? -r Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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