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Ladies and Gentlemen Allow Me to Introduce the Cat Car
Kelmar writes "CNN is running a story about how a German inventor has found a way to power a car using dead cats. Yes you read that right. According to the inventor he can produce the biodiesel fuel at the cost of about $0.30 (US) per liter. Needless to say many animal rights activists are upset by this development, and some are saying that it is illegal to use animals for this purpose in Germany."
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
A spokesman for Bild told Reuters the story was meant to show that cat remains could "in theory" be used to make fuel with Koch's patented method.
t ype=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-09-14T160628Z_01_ MAR457954_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-GERMANY-CATS.XML
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?
Cue joke about "CATalytic converters"...
Mind you, the Brits had a car called a Morris Minor. It's nickname was the "moggie". Is this the same thing?
Does anyone know if Germany has any WMDs it needs to be liberated of? If not, when's the soonest the American government can give it some so they can invade?
I know I'll get modded down for this, it was a joke. But then again some people have had their sense of humour surgically removed.
A use for a cat? Who could have imagined it?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That nice purring sound of the engine is strictly no coincidence.
ISO certified == THX certified
"Everytime you masturbate, God kills a kitten."
Woohoo! We can now masturbate AND power our car with the results!
*grabs a box of tissues*
This was a story by BILD, the world's largest tabloid newspaper. It is nicely rebuked at Bildblog.de which is a meta-blog following BILD and exposing it's errors, bias and lies. The company ("Alphakat") simply develops a method to process waste as a kind of Bio-Diesel.
Fleur de Sel
...woulld be pleased.
... to the phrase "catalytic converter".
While it may not be such a good idea to find stray cats to fill up your car, I think the development is certainly interesting.
If you take BSE for instance, where tens of thousands of cows are slaughtered 'just in case' and are unfit for consumption - what if we could use those animals for fuel? Or maybe even insects or Republicans. Ridding your house of pests may fill your car up at the same time. Africa may be able sell its grasshopper plague with enough profit to buy more food.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Gee, why not state that he's making them from human corpses? Hell, if he did then michael moore could make a movie about how bush singly handedly created hurricane katrina in order to turn black people into oil (if he hasn't already done so).
There's no reason why the fuel can't be exclusiuvely made out of less controversial (and, from a cat owner's point of view, less offensive) fuel farm animal waste products, trash and other oranic waste.
The only reason, I see, that he mentioned cats was to get on the news.
Can the process be used to produce energy once for each of a cat's nine lives? If so, it should be popular with environmentalists.
The Alphakat website states (in german) that the messages distributed by the media about Dr. Christian Koch (Koch is german for 'cook') processing dead cats into diesel are false and unfounded. And that legal action is being taken against those who made these allegations...
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
Pfft, we've been using dead animals to run cars for years and they've never complained before. This is nothing new ;)
Also, pets are killed on a daily basis in the hundreds, at least this way we're putting them to good use.
input to 'cat' produces equal amounts of output with 100% efficiency. I've never had any dropped ASCII characters when using cat.
animal rights activists shush, this process apparently involves dead animals, so if they're dead, what will you be doing about it? Will the dead animals benefit from your actions?
In any case, many dead animals end up processed for animal food anyway.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
"It's an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it's complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I've never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in."
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
That's just a hoax of our famous 'newspaper' called Bild. If you can read German, visit the Bildblog, a blog dedicated to debunk all of Bilds hoaxes. In the meantime, Dr. Christian Koch put a note on his website, declining that he is using dead cats to produce fuel.
There are already plenty of great uses for cats.
you have been trolled by BILD.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Hell, if he did then michael moore could make a movie about how bush singly handedly created hurricane katrina in order to turn black people into oil (if he hasn't already done so).
come on, nobody believes that bush single-handedly created the hurricane. its pretty obvious that he had some help.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Bild and Sun
One could presumably also use the remains of other creatures, such as politicians, lawyers, and estate agents.
"In theory".
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
...about "putting a tiger in your tank"???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
This news is simply no news. Its a story entirely made up by the biggest german tabloid called Bild. Everyone in Germany with a little education knows that Bild lies in every second line. It's sad to see that even CNN and Reuters fall for stories made up by Bild. I have been in the States for six months and i do have to say that i was amused by the "news" being broadcasted first which soon shifted for me to feel sorry for you guys over there. Unfortunatly there seem too few people having a critical approach to what the news tell them and who inform themselves from really different sources. This is a link to a german blog by journalists that monitor Bild covering the "cat-fuel" article: http://www.bildblog.de/?p=791 It's german, don't know if babelfish etc will be able to translate it properly.
Petrol Direct are the answer to the UK's rising fuel prices - cheap fuel by post, with innovative biofuel products too.
Check out Petrel(TM) a fuel source made from a mixture of seabird guano, combined with the rendered down, fermented and then distilled corpses of a variety of common gulls, albatrosses and terns.
And "Vin Diesel" - Made from the foulest and most undrinkable European wines
Marvellous.
I know this is /., but really. "siting"?
Don't you even have a spell-check you can run on stuff before you post it to the front page? If not a programmatic spell check, how about eyeballing something for about 10 seconds? Something like "siting" should stick out like a sore thumb to you. If it doesn't, maybe you should get someone else to edit...
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Back to the Future was set in 1985, at the end of the first / beginning of the second movie he travels 30 years into the future, and voila - in 2015 the cars use waste as fuel.
Sigh.
Siting = choosing the location of something.
Citing = quoting a reference. I think this is what the original poster was getting at.
Sighting = seeing something.
You, sir, are a sentimental idiot.
Be informed that Germany is more than Hitler, the girl that dumped you (= Hitlerish) and crazy engineers that are said to kill small furry things for fuel (= Hitlerish).
Even if Dr. Koch happens to use actual animal bodies for fuel, would you mind if it were bugs, or spiders? Do you know that in Germany it is the law to get your pet dogs'/ cats'body to a "Tierkörperverwertungsanstalt" (roughly translated "Animal corpses processing facility"), where its body is grind up to "Tiermehl" ("Animal wheat") that used to be fed to farm animals before BSE? Now it is burnt for electricity. Yes. that is electricity out of little kitty! BTW, this law is to protect people from diseases of too many corpses laying around.
What would be the problem in not processing animal cadavers to electricity, but to fuel? Facing energy costs that would feel near to insane to you US guys (we are paying 1,50 per litre for fuel), I greatly appreciate using alternative fuel systems. And the cat population tends to grow! No energy problems for the next few centuries.
BTW: Actually Dr. Koch uses garbage for fuel. The claim he used cats is made by a german tabliod that is probably funded by our fellow oil companies. Wrecking ones inventions for profit by false claims that outrage the public idiot is quite common in ye ol'de europe.
This message was typed for your convinience right in the ex-Third Reich.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
What happens to the material removed when people have lipsuction? I'd have thought this would be a good source of fuel......
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
it sounds like...
;-) Try Mr. Google!
This was news a year or so ago. 'Changing World Technologies' I think?! Can't be bothered looking for a link...
He who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know...
According to the inventor he can produce the biodiesel fuel at the cost of about $0.30 (US) per liter.
That should read "$0.30 per litter". Typical slashdot editorial laxness!
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
TFA says he
Which is fine, but that's a meaningless comparison. In the United States, the tax on gasoline is a huge percentage, and I've heard that in some places in Europe, up to 80% of the money you're paying at the pump goes to taxes, and as little as 20% of it goes to the actual cost of fuel. If this is true, that obliterates his factor of 5 right there.
Can anyone in Germany comment on what percentage of the money that you pay at the pump goes to taxes? One site I found indicates the tax on diesel was 47.04 euro cents per liter in 2003 and 65.45 euro cents per liter on gasoline, but the chart on that site is hard to read and unclear.
But let's just assume that figure is accurate and compare things taking into account taxes. The article says it costs him 23 euro cents to produce a liter, and that regular diesel costs 5 times that much at the pump. That means you pay about 115 euro cents at the pump. If his biodiesel were subject to the same taxes, and if it were free to store it and transport it and there were no markup at all anywhere from manufacturing all the way to retail sales, then his biodiesel would be 70 cents per liter. So, what you pay at the pump right now is only 1.6 times as much as the minimum his fuel could ever really cost if it were sold at the pump, not 5 times as much.
I bet the inventor has a vanity license plate on his car that reads:
I8URCAT
More
Anybody else remember that old, slightly disturbing book?
Probably came out about 20 years ago.
I guess it's outdated, now.
102 Uses for a Dead Cat?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
That means it could also offset the cost of a funeral. Cremation is much too expensive, and you don't really get anything in return. This way, you can actually make money while dealing with your beloved family members remains. I'll bet your 250 lb mother could make more than 20 gal of bio-diesel.
Surely there's enough biodiesel (and other flammable liquids) in that useless windbag Ted Kennedy's carcass to power an inner-city bus for several years. And as an added bonus, onen could keep Robert F. Jr. in the trunk as an "auxiliary fuel tank", as it were.
3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!
Shouldn't that be 30 cents per litter?
(I'm english, it's spelt litre here, so I mis-read the article anyway)
Respect copyright - the GPL relies on it.
They were all addressed on his webpage ages ago. Do keep up.
> I do not endorse the site linked above, or guarantee in any way the accuracy of
> the material presented there.
For good reason - it's inaccurate.
From IMDB:
Chet Pussy: Pussy, pussy, pussy! All pussy must go. At the Titty Twister we're slashing pussy in half! This is a pussy blow out! Make us an offer on our vast selection of pussy! We got white pussy, black pussy, Spanish pussy, yellow pussy, hot pussy, cold pussy, wet pussy, tight pussy, big pussy, bloody pussy, fat pussy, hairy pussy, smelly pussy, velvet pussy, silk pussy, Naugahyde pussy, snappin' pussy, horse pussy, dog pussy, chicken pussy, fake pussy! If we don't have it, you don't want it!
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I'm curious what a "live chicken leftover" looks like
Er, that'd be shit, Jaw. I wouldn't recommend investigating it too closely in volume, but maybe that's just me.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
The article says that he used 'run-over cats' among other ingredients. So where does he get these cats from? Seeing one scurrying across the road, and noticing the fuel needle hovering near the empty mark, wouldn't you be tempted to swerve and make yourself some free fuel?
Perhaps the mark II will have 'fuel scoops' fitted on the front. And if this invention is adapted for larger diesel engines as used in railway locomotives, the cow-catcher could take on a slightly different purpose.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
That's TWO major media outlets that did ZERO fact-checking!
And now, to prove my tinfoil hat is still working-- is it really that much of a stretch to suggest that some oil industry PR firm planted this story? Sure, I may be way off-base, but I think I've earned the right to speculate wildly considering that two major news outlets simply printed untruths.
Did the moderator even read the first line of the article - "Inventor denies dead cat fuel story".
The post is completely inaccurate.
IT reads that the guy denied using cats but uses trash, plactics and other waste product,,no way it said cats,,it was a rumor.
We are more close to Back to the future than we think.
I have enough baby diaper full of crap to power a shuttle
Or maybe the whole country got stinking drunk for a year and didn't drive at all, thereby saving gas...
I wonder if the animal rights activists that are objecting to this possibility of making biodiesel from dead cats are really considering the relatvie costs in animals harmed in the production of feline diesel and petrodiesel. Perhaps the toal number of animals harmed in the production of petrodiesel (from pulling crude from a well, shipping that crude, refining, shipping the refined fuel, all the way to combustion) is greater than the production of biodiesel from a (already) dead cat.
This paper (http://www.courses.rochester.edu/nobis/animals/Da vis-LeastHarm.htm) for instance argues that people who choose a vegan diet out of concern for the welfare of animals actually do more harm by taking their nutrients from foliage harvested via machinery that if they just ate the cows that harvested if for them.
Details on the KDV 500 mentioned in the article are here . No mentions of cats, though.
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
I've always felt there was some kind of relationship between cars and pussy.
Proverbs 21:19
I think the Cat Gas would be great to power the 'Nekobus' (catbus)
http://www.higashiko.net/nekobus/oneko.html
Hmm Fuel from Cats... gives new meaning to 'PETrol'
Sorry
is "Inventor denies dead cat fuel story." Unless it was recently changed, that is a fairly clear indicator that the Slashdot story was purposely disingenuous.
Yeah, it was Modern Marvels on the History channel about sugar.
During the oil crisis Brazil invested heavily in sugar production to make ethanol. They also worked with GM such that all GM cars made in Brazil are flex-fuel. They can run off 100% ethanol, 100% gas, or anything in between.
They said that they're moved from 90% dependence on foreign oil to 15%. You still need gas for chilly mornings so the cars have a small gas-only tank and then switches to pure ethanol after it's warm.
They were showing prices and ethanol was less than half the cost of gas. They also had a government mandate in the 80's that all fuel stations must carry gas, ethanol, and diesel. Much easier to solve the distribution problem that way.
Personally I'm a diesel/bio-diesel fan as I prefer the power characteristics and because ethanol in the US is made from corn by ADM who are decidedly evil but renewables of any stripe are a step in the right direction.
Explaining the joke just ruins it. A shame too, as I thought it was very funny.
Required reading for internet skeptics