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garbage energy

Posted by Terrence at 00:05, 25 Jul 2005

My engineer brother-in-law told me the other day that we will soon see cars that run on garbage.

Is he full of you-know-what? or will we see this in our lifetime?

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OH.... M.art.Y
#1
toxilogic's picture
Member since:
1 May 2004
Last activity:
6 weeks 1 day
Posted by toxilogic on 25 Jul 2005 at about 00:35.

Hi Terrence,

Has your brother in law been back to the future too ?

hi Terrence,
#2
thefloppy2's picture
Member since:
22 February 2005
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4 years 10 weeks
Posted by thefloppy2 on 25 Jul 2005 at about 01:00.

Internal combustion engines can run on all sorts of stuff. Methane is one of them. Around Brisbane there are a lot of landfill dumps with methane regulating valves on them...what a waste...(pardon the pun)

DISCLAIMER:the opinions and veiws in this post are mine only and do not nesessarily reflect those of others.

several ways
#3
earthling's picture
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Posted by earthling on 25 Jul 2005 at about 01:42.

This sort of thing comes up every now and then, there are lots of processes to gain energy from waste materials.

There are some people who make diesel fuel from the worldly remains of turkeys, which they get from a turkey processing plant somewhere in the US. These are the parts that they can't sell as edible, nor as pet food, so there is probably not much per turkey, but still. This process would work for most organic waste. I don't remember the exact source of this info.

Also there was news (twice the last few months) of an improved fermentation process that treats waste water, and produces hydrogen gas. The hydrogen can then be used in fuel cells, or wherever you want a gas that burns. This particular process applied a small voltage to aid bacteria with the chemistry, getting the process over some energy barrier. I don't remember seeing how the current applied for this compares to the eventual energy output you get from the hydrogen.

Other people make diesel from frying fats thrown out by fast food restaurants. They leave some of the aroma in the diesel, perhaps so that everyone knows they are saving the environment while they drive.

I'm sure there are other processes, after all lots of our waste is hydrocarbons of some sort.

A problem with a lot of these is the scale, or lack thereof. People don't eat enough turkeys to make much of a dent in OPEC, for example. For some, a problem is primary energy - the process produces fuel that can be used to run vehicles, but more energy is used to produce the fuel than can be gained from them. Using fossil fuels, mother nature has done the energy storage part over a few million years, and we spend comparatively little energy liberating it.

Yea...right
#4
Dorenob's picture
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Posted by Dorenob on 27 Jul 2005 at about 10:39.

...like the Oil Industry will ever let that happen..I mean, c'mon, we've had the technology since Tesla's time to be free from petroleum dependency.. Inkslinger