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Around The Country Without Gasoline
IronChefMorimoto writes "Autoweek has an interesting write up on an Australian man's 16K mile trek around the United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an excrement-powered scooter." Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours.
Really? He's got a pooper scooter?
People have been travelling great distances without gasoline since prehistoric times.
Hell, Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean without it.
Unknown host pong.
excrement-powered scooter
I'm sure it's gets shitty mileage.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
I would seriously try to ride a bike almost everywhere I went if I wasn't in constant fear for my life.
Biodiesel doesn't have anything to do with cutting down emissions. You're still burning hydrocarbons.
Yeah, Daryl Hannah is on the interview circuit telling the world that the only byproducts are harmless steam and a wonderful flowery smell. She's a fucking moron.
Not relying on fossil fuels is a noble goal, but the problems of CO and CO2 emissions (and others) are still there. Burning biodiesel even creates a whole new range of compounds that burning petrolium diesel doesnt.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
" Biodiesel doesn't have anything to do with cutting down emissions. You're still burning hydrocarbons."
Actually, regardless of whether or not Darryl Hannah is a moron, you are wrong.
Because the carbon in the vegetable oil used to make biodiesel is already part of the carbon cycle (opposed to having been sequestered underground for millions of years), biodiesel does not, for the most part, contribute to a NET INCREASE in carbon dioxide.
In fact, research by the US DOE suggests that biodiesel use cuts net CO2 emissions by 78%.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/pdfs/biodieselfuel.pdf
The reason it isn't 100% is because the methanol reacted with the veggie oil to make the methyl ester comes from petroleum in the US. You can make ethyl ester biodiesel using non-petrochemical based ethanol, but the process control is less forgiving.