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.

Comments

-1, FUD

[dant]

What about the exhaust given off from cars that are burning Mad Cow Fuels?

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.

Re:Woot! Once They Figure It Out...

[Smidge204]

What's to figure out? It's called thermal depolymerization (TDP) and has been around for awhile now. I'm surpized more farm waste isn't utilized in this manner.

I also propose running the TDP plants off of geothermal whenever possible. Plenty hot enough and it's essentially free energy for the taking.

How many (millions?) or tons of organic waste is produced in the USA due to farming alone? Think of all the light crude that could produce... Once you have the oil, you can use regular refinery techniques to turn it into any number of distillate products.

I'd like to see a future where you don't just recycle metal cans and glass/plastic bottles, but kitchen and yard waste as well. So sense dumping it all into a landfill when it can at least be used for something!
=Smidge=

What like this ?

[MerlynEmrys67]

The Mootrix

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

Perhaps not.

[Seraphim_72]

Mad Cow disease is a disease of prions - and from here

IV. PRIONS Prions are extremely resistant to conventional inactivation procedures including irradiation, boiling, dry heat and chemicals (formalin, betapropiolactione, alcohols). Most procedures reduce infectivity rather than eliminate it. All treated contaminated materials should be discarded through the infectious waste stream and incinerated. Use DISPOSABLE plastic labware whenever possible.

1. Complete and sign the Notification of the Proposed Destruction of Select Agents Form
2. EHRS will notify the PI or lab manager when destruction is approved.
3. Inactivate prions by one of the following methods:
4. * Autoclave dry waste at 132 C for 4.5 hours.
5. * Treat large volumes of infectious liquid waste containing prions with 1N NaOH (final concentration) followed by autoclaving at 132 C for 4.5 hours.
6. * Treat with phenol (1:1); guanidine hydrochloride or isocyanate (>4 mol/L); 1N NaOH (final concentration); sodium hypochlorite (>2% free chlorine) for 24 hours.
7. Dispose of inactivated prion waste as infectious waste.

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.

Re:Perhaps not.

[be951]

Somehow I doubt you can made good fuel this way.

Well, no. Not that way. But thermal deploymerization seems likely to work rather well. It uses significantly higher temperatures plus high pressure to break down almost anything into short chain hydrocarbons useful for fuel, plus minerals (useful for fertilizer) and water. Here's an example. I believe it has not been specifically tested for destroying prions, but the chemistry indicates that it will.

Re:Demeaning to life

[be951]

Don't you mean "demeaning to animal byproducts"? That's what we're really talking about here. Parts of slaughtered cattle that were previously used or disposed of in other ways now must be processed in a way that accounts for the risk of BSE. This is a program aimed at making that less of a cost burden to beef producers.

Cattle are (and have been for quite some time) systematically raised and slaughtered for meat. This project by the FDA doesn't change that one whit. It simply addresses how to deal with waste material that could be hazardous. If the former (slaughtering cattle in general) bothers you, that's fine. But the latter (waste disposal) should reduce the risk of mad cow type infections in cattle and humans. That's a good thing.