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Cow Brains Into Biofuel
beatleadam writes "If the reality of $2.00 per gallon of gas does not scare you enough, then perhaps this will. '...Cattle brains, skull, eyes, spinal column, small intestine and other parts suspected of harboring mad cow disease were banned from human consumption in December as a safety precaution, shortly after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States...' The FDA is now funding research aimed at producing biofuels from cattle brains. What about the exhaust given off from cars that are burning Mad Cow Fuels?" It's the grand circle of life.
I've always wondered, is it better to kill a cow without it knowing, or to use the current method of lining the cows up for slaughter?
Stress causes muscles to tense up and prevents the release of toxins from the muscle tissue into the bloodstream. Relaxed muscles do the opposite and are usually fairly clean because of a fresh supply of aerobic blood.
If the cows know that they are going to die, wouldn't this increase their stress level and ultimately degrade the flavor and consistency of their meat?
Perhaps it would be better to pamper the cows and then slaughter them one by one out of sight of other cows who may become distressed.
Flavorful beef is what I'm after here, but if it also leads to better fuel for my Impala then I'm glad to help start the conversation.
It, like the gasoline put into the car in the first place, will be composed of hydrocarbons vastly too short to be formed into prions.
Go read up on what refineries do and how they work. It will put your mind at ease about this 'threat', plus which it's a fascinating problem they have to solve. Every day a refinery doesn't blow itself to smithereens is a testament to the skill of the engineers who built it.
Now all I need to do is figure out what kind of cows make the highest octane gas. Longhornds, or maybe Angus. I wonder if milk vs. beef cows makes a difference.
If the cow is "corn-fed beef", does that mean the fuel I'd make has ethonol? If the cows are fed beans, would my car have to be able to run on Methane to use the fuel made from the cows?
Oh, there are just too many jokes. :)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I am not opposed to looking into diferent sources for energy. However i really dislike the tone of the article. I find it very disturbing how little value people give to life. It is sad that people make fun of things like this. I am not an animal rights advocate but still animals are not simply on earth so we can use them up. and when we do use them for our benefit we should be mindful of the sacrifice they made. the second we are cruel to animals needlesly we begin to lose our humanity and we begin being cruel to other human beings. most serial killer ans psychopaths abused animals in their youth. anyway i was ust upset about the general tone of it being a joke that they killed a bunch of cows because WE were assholes and gave them their own shit to eat while we raised them to kill them to eat them ourselves and now we rea trying to look for ways to turn their innnards into energy.
the same thing as the turkey guts to oil in a big pressure cooker thing?
why not burn our dead people not spawn the bovine damned
?
the horror
.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Hmm...I meant to post that from the safety of cowardly anonymity.
I'll just slink into the corner now.
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This sounds like a set-up for some sort of bovine Matrix, only this time the computers are powered by cow-brains.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This kind of thing can happen. I caught brontosaurus flu once from sniffing a car's tailpipe. You'd think that the diseases from the animals turned into the fuel would go away, but nooOOOO.
Why would $2.00/gal for gas scare me? Two dollars isn't a damn thing. I go through two dollars in coffee while I'm sitting at breakfast reading the newspaper at the local diner, before work. Two dollars is three minutes of work in the office. For an hour's worth of work, I can afford 20 gallons of gasoline which will take me about 500 miles in any direction I want. That's seven seconds of my time to afford a mile's worth of gas. That's a pretty sweet deal!
And if I were too poor to afford a measely $10/wk for gas, I could save a whole lot of money by taking public transportation. For a $50/mo bus pass, I could save by not having to pay gas, maintainance, tune-ups, insurance, lease, tolls and everything else that's related to owning a car.
In fact, I make about $120,000/yr and am 31 years old and do not own a car. I never have owned a car. I don't have a driver's license and have never even been behind the wheel of a car. Why waste that kind of money on something that only depreciates over time when I can just put out $50 for a bus pass and even gain an extra two hours per day to read the newspaper, technical manuals, listen to music, watch movies on my DVD player and whatever else I feel like doing that morning or evening?
People who complain about gas need to get themselves in check. Gas is cheap. Driving is something you do because you want to. Either deal with the expense and stop complaining or stop driving and take public transit or ride a bike or something. Cars aren't fucking necessities for fuck's sake.
Just out of curiosity... It is said that when you move form one level in food chain to next, only 10% of energy is tranferred. (For e.g. if a cow eats 100 Joules worth of grass, then human who eat cow get 10 Joules from those 100 J ). Taking this 10% efficiency rule in to account, would it not be better if we invested in obtaining power from plants rather than from animal's flesh? Am I missing something here?
Can't find it but PETA (I think) did a Mootrix take off as well as a video, was pretty funny on "farm raised" animals stuck in the Mootrix
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Imagine that biodiesel and blends catches on to the extent that you don't know if you're using it or not.
Would PETA demand a boycott of all diesel?
Now imagine that this somehow kept fuel prices down even a few pennies. Not wearing a fur coat is one thing, but paying more for gas?
Animal rights is doomed.
(It's funny. Laugh.)
We should really be able to milk this for all it's worth; there's a lot at steak [sic]. Let's just hope it's not udderly ridiculous, as it behooves us to grab the bull by the horns and find alternative fuels. Hopefully this steers the industry into greener pastures.
ok. I think that's out of my system now... Sorry.
So instead of gas prices going up we will have beef prices going up.
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IIRC, Burning the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead just made more zombies... this may not be the best option.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103443/
COMBUSTED
The prions that cause BSE are incredibly hardy and are extremely heat resistant! They can easily withstand 1 hour at 360 C.
IDIOT
Why not just state your case without the flame? Take a deep breath, relax, think happy thoughts.. then post.
$2.00 per gallon would be a luxury. That may be the national average, but right now in California, the cheapest 87 octane I can find is $2.299. I've heard that it's well into the $2.80's in some of the more remote desert areas of California too.
This sig intentionally left justified.
Mad Cow disease is a disease of prions - and from here
Somehow I doubt you can made good fuel this way. Besides which I personally still wouldnt touch the stuff even after all of this had been done to it. And that is what I teach my students as well.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Just what's so magical about this bacterium/virus that it can survive(and pass through to the final airborne infection factor)
a) a filtering
b) liquefaction
c) sedimentation
d) combustion of its now liquid base
e) any other prevention methods we should think of before using potentially infected biofluids as fuel
And still be considered a threat? Is that one of those weaponized biotoxins, instead of (the latest information I had) a cow virus transmissible only through bone marrow/spinal fluid exchange between bovines(and in some cases, the exact transmission rate not known, or at least, not spoken of in the non-specialist literature) humans...
Is this another case of FUD?
For that matter, why is there research into brains, which are not fit for consumption(and therefore have to be disposed of). Instead of using methane, which are also cowbyproducts, and which another study showed made cows a strong source of greenhouse gases? Why not recuperate methane(major component of natural gas) and use it instead?
It reminds me of that research that said fluor was chosen to purify water instead of chlorine not because of its price or abundance of efficiency(at the time, the text didn't mention later studies) but because it was a common by product of aluminum extraction?
Is the western corporate world so desperate about industrial "clean up bills" as that?
The prions that cause BSE ... can easily withstand 1 hour at 360 C.
Assuming that prions survive the process of being converted to fuel, how long do they last at typical diesel combustion temperatures, which start around 550C and go up?
Of course, we'll have to be sure to label bovine-derived biodiesel "Not for human consumption"...
Props for putting it so elequently man! I couldn't have done it. My opinion of cows is that they're somewhere between a plastic bucket and a not-too-smart rock. And thats an insult to plastic buckets and rocks.
:)
I don't know why, but people today seem to have this idea that cows are cute and can talk like they do on TV - it'd be hillarious if it weren't sad. But in reality they're just some of the stupidest creatures you'll ever find. Dogs can be smart. Horses can be smart. But cows? Not even close. Name just about any other common farm animal, and chances are its twice as smart as a cow (notable exception: chickens). Cows know as much about whats going on around them as we do about extraterrestrial culture: Sweet F.A.
So just shoot the stupid things and put em on my plate, in my car, or wherever else they have a use. At least then they'll serve a purpose.
... we used oxes to power transportation. Those were the days, man!
oops!
$2.00 per gallon of gas
I really don't know what people are complaining about, $2 dollars per gallon is not that expensive.
This is $0.46 per litre.
This morning, I payed 1.1 Euro per litre, or $1.46 or $6.30 per gallon; a surplus of $4.32 per gallon.
OK, I admit that this is expensive, but the world does not stop and our economy is running pretty smoothly (could always go better, I admit).
Just put those $2 measly dollars per gallon into perspective and perhaps, just perhaps, consider other (alternative) means of transportation...
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
Those soaring gas prices are why I'm switching to a Diesel VW Passat. Turbo-charged 4-cyl. diesel.. 0-60 in 9 seconds (fairly respectable), 5 speed manual (I hate automatic) 50-60 hwy mpg, 1000 mile range on a full tank of gass and its a Passat, so it's a nice car. Nevermind the fact diesel is still hovering around $1.60 a gallon. :)
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
So does anyone else wonder what they did with all this nutrient filled goodness BEFORE BSE was thought of as a threat?
Lets see them make Oil out of Soylent Green! Yeah baby, now THERE is some compassion ...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
But in reality they're just some of the stupidest creatures you'll ever find.
...
Just like Jews and Americans and The Terrorists and The Nazi's, and the French, and anyone from Florida, and those Afghani's, and the Chinese and the
Your kind of thinking leads to big smoke stacks full of 'stupid things being consumed for the greater good of all'...
A-hem. Many of our founding fathers were Deists and specifically not Christians. Read the writings of Thomas Payne.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
550 deg. C after compression, and as high as 2000 deg. C during the actual combustion process!
=Smidge=
Can you find a better reference than a 12 year old academic paper?