Oil From Dinner Last Night is Fuel of Tomorrow

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

sviola

Distinguished
Mar 9, 2006
43
0
18,580
Eventough it is not the same study conducted in the article, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, already has an industrial process running to convert used-cooking-oil into bio-diesel 5% (5% of the mix is from this converted oil and 95% of regular diesel), which is running in 3500 buses (50% of the amount of buses in the town). At the end of last year, a few buses started testing bio-diesel 20% and if all goes well, before the end of this year, the whole fleet will start the convertion to this new fuel.
 

BulkZerker

Distinguished
Apr 19, 2010
195
0
18,630
[citation][nom]sviola[/nom]Eventough it is not the same study conducted in the article, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, already has an industrial process running to convert used-cooking-oil into bio-diesel 5% (5% of the mix is from this converted oil and 95% of regular diesel), which is running in 3500 buses (50% of the amount of buses in the town). At the end of last year, a few buses started testing bio-diesel 20% and if all goes well, before the end of this year, the whole fleet will start the convertion to this new fuel.[/citation]

They could go straight to b-50 or higher if they didn't mind changing a few filters in the middle of traffic lol.
 
G

Guest

Guest
you only have to change filters in the beginning because biodiesel cleans out your fuel tank, once all the crude is out, the change rate is the same as petro-diesel.You can run B-100 all day long.
 

XZaapryca

Distinguished
Oct 8, 2009
89
0
18,580
1. Bio fuel won't scale to the "needs" of the US (as pointed out by jellico).
2. Huge tracks of forests are currently being destroyed to make room for crops that are used in making bio fuel.
3. There will come a point where enough people will be wanting the used cooking oil that it will stop being free.
4. We don't have a global resource issue, we have a global population issue.

Get ready for WW3....eventually. All of these problems will come to a head unless some smart people come up with a totally new energy generation method.
 

f-14

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2010
774
0
18,940
adaman2576 carbon neutral??? What will be done with all the excess CO2??? Last time I checked that was a green house gas.
i will take it, i still use some CO2 powered paintball guns XD
you can also use it to carbonate drinks, like BEER, which all the people in wisconsin will easily use up the entire supply of C02 they can produce, cheers & wtg cheesers.

my main questions is this "A fuel-steam mixture is then added, causing it to react with the hot nickel oxide to produce hydrogen gas..."
what fuel are they using with the steam, how much, and is the expense worthwhile or is it still an equal negative impact as using a petroleum product instead of Hydrogen?

also, last i learned from 7th grade sceince class, plants burn CO2 during the day and produce oxygen, at night they burn oxygen.

as far as all you "scale modelers go" if everybody was a pc.. what would jobs do? hehehe
horses used to dominate the market before cars, cars were very noisy, very ineffcient, and cost more. how ever cars didn't spew poo onto the ground and didn't need to be saddled up, or rubbed down and were ready to go and put away in a fraction of the time horses took. simply amazing the automobile took off in the first place don't you think?
marketing & PR, if people buy apple products, there are alot more tree huggers that will jump all over this with the right PR!
i'm sure alot of you say the same thing about rechargeable batteries, and most of you haven't stopped to think about the rechargeable battery in your automobile because you use it every day and only have to replace it every 3-5-7 years at the least. the closer to $5 a gallon of petroleum fuel, the more screaming there will be for competitive alternative fuels. scientists already gave the world a long lasting alternative fuel in 1940, nuclear power. the technology to control it wasn't there. we have the means to make use of it decades later, how ever we do not have the safety that is required to keep some jihadi or idiot from turning it into a dirty bomb or causing an environmental hazzard or toxic spill. until then your stuck with petroleum, so starting thinking about more brilliant means and methods fast!
 

f-14

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2010
774
0
18,940
oh also, compressed CO2 turns to liquid and is very cold..you guys might want to jump on coolermaster and zalaman and thermaltake and the lot; to start using it in heat pipes for your over clocked CPU's. just a thought, enjoy.
 

BulkZerker

Distinguished
Apr 19, 2010
195
0
18,630
[citation][nom]XZaapryca[/nom]1. Bio fuel won't scale to the "needs" of the US (as pointed out by jellico).2. Huge tracks of forests are currently being destroyed to make room for crops that are used in making bio fuel. 3. There will come a point where enough people will be wanting the used cooking oil that it will stop being free.4. We don't have a global resource issue, we have a global population issue.Get ready for WW3....eventually. All of these problems will come to a head unless some smart people come up with a totally new energy generation method.[/citation]

Care to enlighten us as to where in the UNITED STATES of AMERICE (a country so full of tree huggers that we can't even cut down a diseased tree to save a forest, letalone selective cutting to help prevent wildfires. Without having to arrest at least 10 members of some odd band of eco terrorists) that we are cutting down forests to make room for farm lands?

People seem to think that corn based ethanol is as good as it will get and that the byproduct is just wase, which it isn't, its used to feed cattle, exactly as it waaas before it was used to before it was being used to make ethanol. Sorgum based ethanol is a much better sourse, and farmers are beginning to, reluctantly move over to swichgrass, whicch has the highest yield for fuel.

I'm not saying this is the perfect solution, but its better than trying to pull hydrogen from water, ehich is super inneficient.

Now as foor aanother piece of the solution there is the "hot air" engine a man developed back in the 80s. It didn't catch on because the tmps in the engine are extremely hot and puts any engine on the verge of meltdown. Letalone running the engine causes detonation which will instantly damage the internals. That tech right there needs reserched. Ots there, it just needs further refinemant.
 
G

Guest

Guest
It also seems to me like you can get 2 stages of energy right there!
The more stages you have, the more energy you'd be able to get out of each conversion; and convert the freed (heat) energy to power something.
 

cablechewer

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2008
46
0
18,580
Is the catalyst consumed by the reaction? If it is then we need a lot of H2 from the reaction to make replacing the catalyst worthwhile. Producing the nickel for the catalyst should be considered in the equation for how environmentally friendly and carbon neutral this method of producing hydrogen is. I am not against what they are doing - I just want to know the total cost of each system so that we can get behind the one that offers the best efficiency.
 

feeddagoat

Distinguished
Apr 11, 2010
149
0
18,630
Sure you could run cars on cooking oil for years and with supermarkets doing it so cheap its would save you a fortune. Only problem is the government doesn't like it with their love of fuel taxes so its heavily frowned upon =/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.