Slashdot Mirror
"Vetrolium" From Agricultural Waste
junctionvin writes "The company Sustainable Power Corp. claims to have created a form of bio-crude oil from agricultural refuse. They use agro-waste from cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo, and jatropha and turn it into bio-crude oil. This crude can then be further refined into everything from gasoline to jet fuel and just about every petrochemical in between. The CEO is quoted: 'Our biggest problem is that we are too good to be true. We can literally replace every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 percent of the waste byproducts in the country.' They also claim that their fuel burns to near 100 percent efficiency." The article doesn't mention what price the "vetrolium" would command in today's market or going forward, except to report the CEO's promise "to one day sell his gasoline for $1 less than the pump price for regular fuel, no matter what the cost. 'Even if it's $2 per gallon, I'll sell mine for $1,"' he said."
vaporware, literally.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
tfa says it burns without generating any heat. i'll be taking a bath in this stuff every night, setting myself on fire, and running around the block screaming. i think the neighbors will get a real kick out of it.
and it will burn off completely. when it's done- no odor or residue. i mean how great can it get?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Perhaps, but ever time I hear something like this, I still have the hope it really is true. Each time I'm wrong, but who cares! It would be awesome!
Sounds like a pump and dump to me. Their stock is at approximately nothing, this claim has no actual details of process. It also violates common sense (complete combustion from a hydrocarbon? They're not zero impurity fuels), and promises an astounding return from the use of a waste product. They make claims that they can put it into production very quickly, which is extremely unlikely given the issues with biofuel scaling.
From their website:
Matters discussed in this press release contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "may," "intend," "expect" and similar expressions identify such forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those contemplated, expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the expectations of the Company and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. These include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with: the impact of economic, competitive and other factors affecting the Company and its operations, markets, product, and distributor performance, the impact on the national and local economies resulting from terrorist actions, and U.S. actions subsequently; and other factors available from the Company.
I think that sums it up nicely.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Is it just me or does that sound like not the best way to run a business?
Oh man, I'm just waiting for all competing providers to declare 79 cents fuel - then Mr CEO would have to pay you 21 cents for using each gallon of his fuel. Won't happen, but a schadenfreudist can dream...
I can't wait until his product comes to maturity -- then demand for gas will be so low that the price will drop below $1.
"Fill her up with regular, please. You can pay me in cash."
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Sure they can make a lot of crude and fertilizer out of their agricultural waste, but how much energy are they using to convert it? It's all good and wonderful that they can make gasoline out of "waste", but if the energy costs to convert it are more than the production and transportation costs from other sources, either conventional or unconventional (oil sands for example), they may not really be accomplishing anything useful... However, if they were using say a nuclear plant to power their conversion, that'd be a different story.
I'm critical, not cynical...
Algae biodiesel is far more advanced as vaporware than agricultural waste biodiesel. It claims 10,000 gallons per acre; whereas this agri-waste one claims 6 gallons per bushel. I heard that agri-animal-waste biodiesel claims 1000 gallons per cow. We need more consistency in our inflated vaporware numbers!
TFA: "Even after a few minutes of operation, the engine block was cool to the touch while the four-wheelerâ(TM)s exhaust pipe seemed to emit little more than warm, odorless air."
So. This fuel is oxidised thermally neutral? So what's causing the gas to expand? What's driving the pistons?
I'm not going to call bullshit on this whole story yet, but when a reporter thinks he sees crap like the above, he needs to ask WHY.
I refuse to make puns about "hot air" :)
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Here is their home page
http://www.sustainablepower.com/
I can't decide which is harder to believe
Their Science or the fact that they are a penny stock! - Wow who would have guessed that?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Is the bio-fuel from rice the same as the bio-fuel from cotton seed oil? Usually, it isn't. Different sources yield different products. A company that can produce a consistent product from a variety of different sources will make billions.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Does this mean time traveling car are also in the works???
Matters discussed in this press release contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. ... I think that sums it up nicely.
While you are absolutely correct, that's just a standard bit of boiler-plate required by every company in financial statements so that they can talk about the future. Nothing special about this particular piece of boiler-plate.
Fuels from bodily waste. Will you choose peesel or shitroleum?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
They could just start making fuel and sell it on a small scale, then plow their profits back into their production facilities.
Apple was profitable from Day One.
This would be too, if it actually worked.
The fact that they're not just doing it means they can't.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Yeaaaaaah, "farm" refuse, like SOY...
(I think someone is beaming messages into my brain with a raygun)
If gas is $10 a gallon he is promising to sell his for $9 a gallon (no matter how little it costs to produce). Not such a good deal now huh?
Of course the claim of near 100% burn efficiency raises a lot of red flags as to the veracity of the claims.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I'm a regular subscriber to Popular Science magazine, and I recall seeing several similar-sounding devices covered in there over the years.
Maybe the problem is, most of them work great in a lab environment, as a "demo", but can't scale up to cost-effective, usable/functional products for the real world?
Like what's going on with Frank Pringle's microwave emitter:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html
Or Joseph Longo's plasma trash converter thing:
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage?page=1
Burns without heat? WTF?
Correct me if (when) I'm wrong, but doesn't no heat output mean no enthalpy in the reaction means no ability to do useful work with that reaction? How is a reaction with no heat output supposed to do work in a heat engine like your car?
Your car converts gasoline into mechanical energy by mixing it with air and using the resulting explosion to push a piston (see, for example, here). Without heat output, how is the reaction supposed to cause the rapid pressure change needed to drive the piston?
If "no heat output" is one of their big selling points, I don't see how this can be legit.
But agricultural waste is chock-full of valuable organic substances. It should be composted and returned to the soil so that it can fertilise the next year's worth of food. Burning it up is not all that different from burning corn in the form of 'ethanol' (really, just whiskey): it's just another way to take the last remaining topsoil in the United States and use it to fuel our car addiction, not entirely different from a junky selling his blood every day to get his fix.
From TFA:
Now Rivera must convince potential investors that his trade secret - 21 years and $31 million dollars in the making - isn't just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
If his claims are true, this will be a trivial task. The fact that he keeps talking about how difficult it will be is telling.
I wonder just how much "bio-waste" is available anyway, to supply this venture. Would the specific ingredients they require ever amount to enough so as to provide a significant percentage of a states fuel needs.
The engine temperature observation from the story may just imply that the vetroleum has a very low flash point, or combustion temperature. My friends and I used to set our hands on fire with alcohol from alcohol burners, The alcohol burns at a fairly low temperature, and thus doesn't heat your hand much.
Lower temperature burns would probably generate less side products, producing a cleaner smoke. That's nothing surprising nor revolutionary. It's actually a bad thing too, since the amount of power produced is also less (less heat -> less thermal expansion = less power)
..........FULL STOP.
Assuming for the moment that their claims are legit (TFA doesn't give us anywhere near enough information to evaluate them) it seems to me that the US is the wrong market for this. If I were in their shoes, I'd deploy this in China: the country's still very agricultural (that fertilizer might be worth a lot more there) but growing rapidly (i.e. they're looking for new sources of fuel, not just for cars but for power plants), there is a strong political will to invest in infrastructure, and they like to boast about any engineering feat. Prove it there, work out the kinks for large-scale production and refinement, then bring it west. That's what I'd do.
I have to agree - this doesn't inspire confidence in me.
I'd much rather see samples sent off to independent testing labs. Heck, I'm sure there's some mechanical equivalents to Dan out there.
Heck, Popular Mechanics and consumer reports will occasionally provide free testing of various 'too good to be true' methods and devices.
His idea, taken raw, sounds a lot like thermal depolymerization, which does have a test plant up. But the TD guys aren't proposing a 100% replacement for oil, or making claims that their fuel is almost magical(the lower heat). It IS naturally lower in a number of contaminants such as sulfur, but nothing magical.
I don't read AC A human right
The one and only problem with biofuels (apart from the fact that they produce as much greenhouse gas as petroleum products) is and always has been that we really like our food prices low, and diverting food to vehicle fuel increases the demand and therefore price.
In fact, the main factor in the current food price increase is not oil prices or inflation (though they're helping), it's actually the higher demand for corn due to ethanol subsidies for vehicles [citation: The Economist magazine].
Making more biofuel will increase food prices which is probably not a good idea from a political standpoint. What we need to do is continue to work on hydrogen tech--the main hurdle being the low energy density. Hydrogen is chiefly derived from extracting it from water using electricity (thermodynamics states this does not "create" energy, just change its form).
At present, per joule, electricity (which can be converted into hydrogen energy) is 1/4 the cost of gasoline. Obviously, as with food prices, that would change if we were using electricity to fuel our cars. However, it still may ultimately be less costly to switch over to hydrogen (or some other pure electric car).
Latewire
Thats almost as incredible as my new process to recycle old broken computer parts into perfectly functional bandwidth! I'm planning to start an ISP soon, as soon as my server finishes building itself, which should only take 12-18 months, and a small fortune. And since broken electronics are so readily available, I promise to sell broadband service for half of what anyone else is doing, so if broadband becomes free, I'll pay YOU to use my service!!
Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
see my prev message. If a fuel has a low combustion point, then it doesn't generate much heat. It also, unfortunately, generates less power too.
So the truck engine that runs w/o getting hot is realistic. Of course it might not be able to pull anything either.
..........FULL STOP.
Then let's get the price of gas to $0.99. Then he'll have to pay us to use his stuff.
...if it weren't for those pesky laws of Thermodynamics!
Okay, it's not a perpetual motion machine but the article glosses over or completely ignores a few important details about his ultra-secret process, like just how much energy is required to produce and refine this stuff. He could make the nicest bio-diesel around, but if it takes fire barrels of oil just to make one barrel of it then he's going to have some troubles making his power plant work.
Yup, that would be one way of putting it. I'd be happy to see this project succeed, but it has been tried before and always run into the same problems.
...just like keep trying to do with the plant in my neck of the woods.
http://www.res-energy.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
Scroll to the bottom, under 'Current status' and 'Smell complaints'.
Too bad there's not a section for 'pressure from big oil'. If it isn't the case today, it certainly will be tomorrow.
This outfit in Carthage is already producing 500 barrels a day from guts and fat, at a profit of $4 per barrel. In January 05, their price was $80/barrel ($1.90/gal).
The tech is real, so why don't we have the gas yet?
Parent is making an excellent point; what the company describes as "agricultural waste" is a nutrient-rich and fiber-rich compostable material, essential to keep topsoil in top condition for growing crops. If you don't recycle the so-called "waste" into the ground, the topsoil starts to lose aeration capacity, nutrient load, compaction resistance, etc, after which crop yields can easily fall 30% or more.
Do they pay us to pump their fuel?
...that it isn't vaporware, they are hiring millwrights, welders and electricians, instead of the typical web page "masters" heavy on Flash experience you see at some other places. Besides that, no idea, haven't found any of their patents yet to look at.
In the end, all bio-fuels are solar powered, and the maximum production they can possibly obtain is limited by the light falling on the cultivated area. This company is claiming to produce energy far beyond 100% efficiency for the amount of soy, rice and cotton grown. Also, they area claiming they are getting that energy from the leftovers of the the agriculture process.
There we go... fraudulent and easily provable. Why do these stories keep making the front page? Slashdot is getting as bad as TreeHugger for not even doing basic common sense screening of stories.
I hope their "Chief Con Artists" ends up in prison before he disappears with his investor's money.
http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/news/2007/sep/28/judge-oks-rivera-fraud-suit/ Yup, do people that get scammed by these people not have access to google? That took me 32 seconds to find.
fully aknowledging the snake-oil odour present, there is a point to be made here. Modern biotech uses GMO produced enzymes to break down the cellulose from agricultural waste in lighter sugars which can then be fermented to alcohol in granddaddys style. But each and every step breaks down the amount of energy present in the soup. How about a working opposite? Take a big mean motherf*** nuclear reactor. Use its power to heat up the waste and turn it into very hot gas or maybe even plasma. Control the chemical composition by adding coal, water, air,... Pass it over some catalysers cracking the long molecules and let it condense recuperating as much heat as possible for heating up the next batch. That should be able to give you a kind of crude oil soup which you can feed into a traditional refinery, possibly blended with normal crude.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Now we have an Oil Bubble, and it is fun in its own way. Peak Oil! We're all doomed, the great die-off! Foriegners are eating our lunch! Kuntsler hasn't been this happy since we were all going to be totally doomed by Y2K!
Of course, I wouldn't mind seeing trains make a comeback, and some serious investment in improving nuclear tech, but I'm guessing that the current bubble will pop before we get very far in either on one them. You know its bad when, 12 U.S. airlines call on Congress to curb excessive speculation.
I'm wondering what the next Bubble will be. Some are thinking a Green Tech Bubble, but I'm hoping for a Water Bubble. You know, sort of like that episode of Darkwing Duck with the Liquidator.
Of course, someone could do something about all the insane, emotion-driven speculation but that wouldn't be as much fun. It might lead to economic stability, and who wants that?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
we are too good to be true.
Ok. Next?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
sustainablepower.com? Sounds like their most valuable asset is their domain name.
As for selling it for $1 less than petrol, I'll just wait until a market glut puts gas at $0.97/gallon again and start MAKING 3 cents for every gallon I burn!
...it probably is.
Common Sense 101 - I guess a lot of kids missed that class because their parents kept them at home due to fear of terr-a-wrists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_World_Technologies
A few years ago we all got excited about a company that was converting agricultural waste (turkey guts) to oil. That company, Changing World Technologies, is a legit company and is very open about how their process works. They are indeed processing turkey guts into oil and seem to be making a small profit.
Robert Appel (the brains behind CWT) also pointed out that, if we could convert all our agricultural waste, we wouldn't have to import oil.
The problem with CWT is that their process seems to be very fussy about its feedstock. You can't just throw random organic waste into the reactor and get good results.
Given CWT's experience, and given that they have been very up-front and honest, I would rate this other company's chances of success very poor. The first thing I tried to find when I went to their web site was a description of the technology. I couldn't find it. On that basis, I sure wouldn't invest in the company.
I make a point to follow emerging trends in new energy technologies and there is certainly no silver bullet (unless we can get cold fusion going). However, I'm also of the opinion that the US (and certainly most other nations) has the ability to independently supply its own energy through using a healthy balance of diverse energy technologies.
Off the top of my head:
Combine this with newer technologies that reduce consumption.
Again, none of the above (which are incomplete lists) alone can be a viable solution and each as their own set of problems to overcome. What is needed is a diverse portfolio of renewable energy technologies combined with a more conscious responsible use of resources. I really do believe that in doing this, there is a potential to achieve complete energy independence. What people seem to be having a hard time with is that this requires a huge infrastructural investment as well as the creation of a whole new industry. The infrastructural problems, I think, will work themselves out as the potential of ROI of these different technologies becomes attractive. A jump start from the government would help as well.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
"Sustainable Power Corp"
Getting the agricultural waste out of the food chain is exactly the opposite of sustainable. This means even more exhaustion of the soil, and even more chemicals to be pumped into the soil to compensate for the loss of nutrients. Will people never learn?
A vegan-friendly bio-fuel.
What you do not smell is called Iocanesoline. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more vaporious gasses known to man.
The_neck
And what if gas was $1 per gallon? Think about that.
A lot of people are calling this "vaporware", and yet there are these guys, who are actually doing about the same thing already.
Proverbs 21:19
...and vivoleum is PEOPLE!!!!
So, these guys are the miracle company of July 08 whom claim to be able to make cheap high-quality fuel from waste. When did we start getting these monthly reports? 2003 was it? Or even earlier. I wonder who will make the claim only to be never heard from again next month? Meanwhile we have a few chains selling tiny amounts of Ethanol and BioDiesel for just slightly less then their petrolium counterparts (or about the same $/mile), skyrocketing gas/diesel prices and even grossly inflated food prices. I'll be thrilled when I see this at the pump. If, that is, I'm still young enough to drive. Or am I just being impatient?
I checked on Google Patents but I couldn't see any patent applications for John Rivera as they claim they have in their website... ok I know not *all* patents are on there yet Please note I have recently applied for a patent on "method for extraction of fuel oils from male bovine excretia"
I'm pretty sure it's some form of alcohol. Alky-burning dragsters and monster trucks can have ice built up on the outside of the block after a run, due to the way it's atomized and evaporates. Sure, it explodes, but with not a lot of heat. High compression ratios and a really high A/F mixture rule the roost here.
Sure, it runs cool, but my guess is he'll be getting 6 or 7 MPG in a Honda Civic with it.
Can we get a "Mr. Fusion" tag for stories like this?
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
Let me know when I can pump it in my car....
If it where true at the current price of gas someone would be slamming in a plant the very next day.
Got Code?
That ran "USSEC" into the ground, yet another pump and junk stock. USSEC ran on the "Rivera process" instead of thisn "Rivera method" ... the only thing that matters to this guy is Ego. nay nay nay!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1125_031125_turkeyoil.html
These guys set up shop next to a turkey processing plant. They take the waste and turn it into oil.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
By the way, it's Vertroleum, not Vetrolium. Now go to their web site at
http://www.sustainablepower.com/
and click on the stock link. Check out current price and the 5 year price chart. It's a penny stock that at one point - years ago - hit about $25 a share. I smell scam.
Called Novabiosource Fuels. Ticker NBF (AMEX).
They are actually ramping up production of a 120mgy facility in Seneca and for them it is a race against time - will they be profitably producing biofuels before they run out of money, or will they not. Their stock is taking one heck of a beating right now, but, I'm hanging in their in hopes that this magical alternative energy future pans out for real, rather than just the hypothetical dreams of a few pundits.
This is my sig.
every year in this country, hundreds and hundreds of people are injured, maimed, and even killed by rattlesnakes, copperheads, coral snakes, cottonomouths, and the like
what i do is i take specially trained teams into the places these vermin hide, and for free, for free, i take the snakes to a special pressing plant, where i press the snakes and turn them into a fuel you can use in your car!
i call this amazing product...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
On a scale large enough to feed the nation? REALLY? You're high.
Besides, that waste needs to return to the soil or else we get a dust bowl effect.
Blar.
From angry /. posts
I've got your sig, right here.
“Plant workers weigh out the raw farm waste before it is fed into the reactor, where it will be turned into fertilizer and combustible oil.”
Reactor?!
I didn’t realize this was a nuclear situation.
Apple was profitable from Day One.
How was a customer able to write a check to a company that didn't exist?
Do you mean when Apple incorporated that Steve, Steve, and Mike already had a profitable business that they gave to Apple Computer, Inc?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That's what it sounds like to me.
The nonsense about clean burning, etc may be some refined byproduct, like say LP gas which is generally clean burning enough that it can be used for engines used in indoors environments where gasoline would be a problem, like fork lifts.
The question is whether their process is net positive in energy creation vs. energy usage.
except to report the CEO's promise "to one day sell his gasoline for $1 less than the pump price for regular fuel, no matter what the cost.
Looks like they've discovered a great new way to scare off venture capital.
Heck
I remember gas in the late 80's fall to $0.97 a gallon... does that mean he is giving us $0.03 to take a gallon of his gas???
Gee, their five year chart reminds me of something...
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
However, your system of measurement does have some merit. For example the average 500 lph car could be relabled as getting over 13,000 fph!
These kinds of fuel economy numbers have staggering marketing potential, but may be just too good to be true. Nobody would believe a car could get "over 13,000 fph", the number is just too big for the average consumer who can't handle numbers bigger than, say the number of digits on their cable tv system.
Therefore, I suggest we stick with simple furlongs per gallon, for an instant 8-fold increase in numberage. We can work our way up to yards per pint (but not the kind in those silly tourist glasses) and eventually to mindnumbing feet per barrel (where the average car would get over 4 MILLION).
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Why not burn it in place and dump it on the electricity grid?
This shows, in my opinion, how important battery technology is. Once battery technology gets good enough, literally anything you might convert into gasoline could just as well be burned in a clean, efficient, high temperature engine and dumped onto a superconducting grid, no exotic tech required.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
With this process, just one bushel (60 pounds) of organic waste can yield about six gallons of bio-crude, Rivera said.
.
.
And if that wasn't enough, the sole byproduct from the crude-making process is fertilizer: 737-grade, all organic fertilizer.
"The fertilizer is worth about 15 cents per pound, but the fuel byproduct is worth much more," said General Manager Gerald Brent.
There.
Bio-fuel AND fertilizer.
Yup... Sounds quite too good to be true.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
When you burn carbon based material, you do want it to burn to CO2. When the process of burning is incomplete, you get stuff like CO and soot. One is poisonous the other carcinogenic..
The fact that we do not want to produce CO2 implies that we need more efficient engines and/or burn less fuel.
Thanks,
GerardM
Here are some articles that lend some air that they might not be a scam:
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1773
http://www.chemicalanalysis.com/news.php?extend.76
The fact that they have secured a deal with a major european energy provider and that their product passes gasoline efficiency standards might give them some legitimacy. What do you guys think?
Should that happen, I could see some politicians push for a cancellation of the patent. Why should the notion of "[promoting] the Progress of Science" be able to be used to stifle that very Progress? Not to mention the national security concern of being dependent on unstable oil supplies? If I remember correctly, there have been times in the past where the government forced patents open during wartime.
As an added bonus, the politicians who favor farming subsidies would love to see this process work, just like they love ethanol.
>CEO's promise "to one day sell his gasoline for $1 less than the pump price for regular fuel, no matter what the cost.
When I left Georgia, not too many years ago, gas was $0.67/gallon. I look forward to being paid to fuel up.
So they have a facility that uses energy, right? How do they power it?
Seems like the easiest test a reporter can put to anybody claiming to have a cheap, simple energy alternative: show me your zeroed-out energy bills. If you pay for power from traditional sources, why?
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
I don't see any explanation of how this process is any different from Thermal depolymerization, which was popularly announced in Discover Magazine back in May 2003. Nothing has really come of that, certainly not their grandios claims. So why should this be any different?
So what does he doe if it's under $1 per gallon? Start paying us to use it?
I'm thinking the CFO wasn't in on that decision.
Heat in the car comes from the coolant. The coolant gets warm because of the heat from the combustion.
I'm not going to pay $1 less per gallon to drive around wearing a blanket. $1.25 perhaps.. but not $1.
It is perhaps a were-car?
Calculon: They were working on Project Satan, a savage, evil intelligent car built out of the most evil parts of the most evil cars in history. The steering wheel from Hitler's staff car. The left turn signal from Charles Manson's VW. The windshield wipers from that car that played Knight Rider.
Fry: Knight Rider wasn't evil.
Calculon: His windshield wipers were. It didn't come up much in the show, though.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Please do not forget the water car that was discussed here a couple of weeks ago
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=84561
I loved that one, we promise you a car that runs for free :-) I am already in the queue...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Be nice if these papers would occasionally have a chemist or engineer to cover the announcement instead of sending down whatever college intern is handy to rewrite a press release. I mean I'm not expecting much from the daily flood of "this one will really change the world" energy articles, but if newspapers hope to survive as a viable news distribution medium, editors might give pause before allowing their products to be used for recycling too-good-to-be-true nonsense.
- js.
The problem with this is that if this invention turns out to be 100% true, than it is a MAJOR problem for the oil companies who, it turns out, are the constituents that politicians care most about. They'll be all for silencing any kind of competition for their oil buds.
Aren't they the makers of "Mr. Fusion"?
I'm challenging it. What size bathtub? Are there any mixers involved? If it is gin is there a dash of vermouth and an olive included?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
or does that guy look like the guy that builds motorcycles ...
Since the pressure depends not just on T but also on moles of gas you could use a completely non-combustion process to power the piston. You could use bits of dry ice which would sublime into a much greater volume of gas. This process wouldn't exactly be practical though as you slowly creeped down the road.
...or the article and every slash-dotter who's posted so far?
"Vetrolium" or "Vertrolium"?
A major U.S. Oil company buys them out and closes all patents for it. There's too much politics in {d}ethanol for this company to get off the ground. I would assume the government would make it illegal to process waste as an "environmental concern", or some crap. I don't see this happening unfortunately.
If this pans out, it's a major problem for the oil companies, but a major boon to consumers, many of whom are voters.
I don't anticipate many politicians standing in the way of $2/gallon gas with no net carbon emissions, no matter what happens to big oil. They'd get trampled in the stampede.
I don't understand why this will be a problem for the energy companies, might possibly take a bite out of the ass of drilling companies, but tell the Energy Co. they don't have to partake in the high-risk crap shoot that punching new holes in the ground entail and I'll show you a company with an all-day woodie!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
But right now its an expensive boondoggle.
On the other hand, given the current trend in oil prices, almost any boondoggle, however expensive in the first place, is bound to get much cheaper than gasoline very fast.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Except for the one that buys this guy's company and corners the market on cheap fuel.
If his invention is described in a patent, then the information is already public. Go look it up. In a few years the patent will expire and you can start your own company to make the stuff.
Problem solved. I'm glad we got through that one. Whew. That was close.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
FTA
Rivera must convince potential investors that his trade secret â" 21 years and $31 million dollars in the making â" isnâ(TM)t just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
so it's not a patent
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I remember gas in the late 80's fall to $0.97 a gallon... does that mean he is giving us $0.03 to take a gallon of his gas???
I remember that in either fall 1999 or spring 2000, gas hit $0.99 in the Chicago suburbs. Hasn't been that long...
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Sure they can make a lot of crude and fertilizer out of their agricultural waste, but how much energy are they using to convert it?
They claim they're supplying the production facility's energy needs by burning one of the output fuel products (the gas).
So that just leaves transportation of the raw material to the plant and finished product from it as major energy requirements. Siting such plants scattered around farming areas or near railroad lines from them minimizes the "to" part. Pipelines or railroads into the fuel distribution network make the "from" part manageable.
If the plants can be efficient at scales significantly smaller than petroleum refineries and the fuel is usable (as claimed) at 100% as-is, you can also keep your distribution energy costs low by selling it to consumers near the plant. So fuel ends up cheapest in the farming areas - good for further reducing the cost of the raw materials by cutting the cost of the farmers' production.
The FUN part would be if the plants can be reasonably efficient at a scale where the farmers can run their own - turning their own crops into fuel for their own processes and selling the surplus. (Something like the Pennsylvania farmers before the Whiskey Rebellion - growing grain, then cutting shipping cost to the east coast markets by "processing" it into whiskey.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Will you choose peesel or shitroleum?
That's easy. There's lots more energy per unit of processed waste in shitroleum. B-)
Using either, of course, assumes the processing renders it inoffensive.
(Now if we could just process this thread to render IT inoffensive. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
As a pilot, I was made aware several years ago about a moratorium placed on the 100LL (Low Lead) fuel for general aviation piston powered aircraft. This moratorium requires that aviation fuels must be lead free by 2010. Unfortunately, many GA engines are built on old tech and the aircraft themselves operate in harsher environments, and thus require leaded fuels for anti-knocking, to decrease it's freezing point, and to a lesser degree, anti-corrosion.
Swift Enterprises they had a similar solution to this issue with synthetic fuels derived from bio-mass, similar to that of this Vertroleum product. Here is the AvWeb announcement on the subject, and an update with an interview of the people involved.
Apparently these guys have a working fuel that can seamlessly transition to the current market. What's more, this tech can also be adapted for jet fuel and mogas as well. Because there are several of these companies working on similar technologies, I have hopes that this isn't just a one off scam. Let's hope these companies can promise what they preach.
I can't wait until his product comes to maturity -- then demand for gas will be so low that the price will drop below $1.
"Fill her up with regular, please. You can pay me in cash."
It will still be a profitable business model because they're essentially paying you to haul away farm refuse.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Do farmers use their waste to fertilize their new crops? Isn't that what compost heaps are for? Wouldn't the farmers then need to buy petroleum-based fertilizers to supplement their shortage of compostable waste? Any farmers out there?
Someone will show up and offer you a purple rainbow sherbet traumatic colonic.
Remember though that right now the big interest in biofuels is in corn ethanol. If something comes along that replaces oil as a fuel and makes gas cheaper, the voters will like it. But if that same thing makes all those corn ethanol plants currently sprouting up all over the corn belt go out of business and makes the price of corn go down, the corn farmers (who have a lot of voting power) wont like it and will want congress to do something about it to protect their income.
How is this better than solar power? Is it because it will allow corporations to continue to control the energy and transportation industries? Is this good for some reason?
If everyone had a Tesla (or a cheaper version) and a bunch of solar panels on their garage, we'd all be driving around for free. I don't understand how this isn't happening faster than it is, and why everyone is buying this bullshit about biofuels, ethanol, hydrogen, etc....
Why replace one corrupt fuel industry with another? We could eliminate them altogether!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
It took millions of years worth of decayed vegetation, compressed and heated by natural processes, to produce the oil we have squandered in the last century.Just how likely is it that all today's plant waste, fully loaded with oil, has simply not been noticed in recent decades? You can extract oil from waste plant material in small amounts, but small amounts only. This company is just one more of the many that promise everything, and deliver nothing. Run Away! Run Away!
got to love democracy...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
You can call me stupid, but I invested in this company months ago. It's a pink sheet stock, about $.04/share right now. Symbol is SSTP. Upside is huge, downside is small. Process looks good; check out videos, read up on recent partnerships and development deals. Company website is http://www.sustainablepower.com/ Things are starting to pop, and every now and then someone actually manages to start something big from something small (HP, Apple, Evilsoft, etc.). Don't be a player hater.
Where does KDawson get this tripe and why can't he do even the simplest verifications before he posts it as a story?
One (1) ton of any biomass (not plant oils mind you) has the energy equivalent of about 2 barrels of oil if you can do the conversion for free. We can see this from the chemistry of cellulose, lignans and pentosans.
The issue is that a plant is (CH2O)n while our liquid fuels are C(n)H(2n+2).
That oxygen is heavy and it breaks two (2) bonds.
There is simply NO WAY the guy can get 6 gallons of gas from a bushel of plant waste. The max he could get is about 84 gallons per ton which is 60/2000*84 = 2.5 gallons. So we know the claim is crap before we even read the article. If the company cannot even do the basic chemistry then we can regard their claims as crap as well.
Here is a more detailed calculation if they want octane;
Octane is C8H18O8, its an alkane with n=8
(CH2O)13 = C13H26O13 so we have a little more than 2 simple sugars. Sucrose is C12H22O11. Sucrose is the sugar we buy in the store.
C13H26O13 -> C8H18 5(CO2) 4(H2O) - O so we have some energy in
This is just approximate anyways because we lose OH radiacals when we use sugars to create sugar polymers.
12*13 + 26 + 16*13 = 390
12*8 + 18 = 144
144/390 = 29.23%
23.23% of 2000 = 584 lbs octane.
584/8 = 73 gallons per ton
60/2000 * 73 = 2.2 gallons per bushel.
This is assuming there is enough energy supplied by that one (1) oxygen to drive the reactions. One must balance the energy as well and account for inefficiencies.
I simply do not know why people can not do high school chemistry.
In fact the yield in a real plant will be about 1 ton of fuel for 5 tons of biomass if that. This would be 400 lbs per ton and about 1.5 gallons per bushel.
This is defintely a scam. I downloaded their promotional video that has the man who says he invented the catalyst. I can tell you that he definitely isn't a chemist. He claims...
"we are performing a chemical hydrolysis with a modified pyrolysys and the use of nano bacteria. We are taking the hydrogen molecule, putting it with the oxygen molecule producing more oil. If you split that the waste byproduct is pure oxygen, which is why our jet fuel, our gasoline, is naturally oxygenated"
As a chemist myself, I cannot emphasis enough just what bullsh*t this is. Firstly hydrolysis requires water, which they don't add. Secondly, no chemist would use the term "We are taking the hydrogen molecule, putting it with the oxygen molecule, producing more oil" it makes no sense whatsoever!! Thirdly, the last thing you want is for fuel to be naturally oxygenated.
That's just the start... that say so much contradictory stuff as leave me in no doubt that this is a scam.
It's real. I've personally seen the process from soybeans to fuel. The CEO has faced some obstacles from investors who tried to take over the company in Mississippi, but he is back on track in Baytoen TX. www.usse.us
Sorry, that website is www.biocrude.us and www.ussec.us
BAYTOWN, TX, Jul 14, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Sustainable Power Corp. (PINKSHEETS: SSTP) is pleased to announce today a Strategic Alliance has been formed with Envirocompanies, Inc., a Nederland, TX based company, to purchase and distribute up to 140 million gallons a day of Sustainable Power's revolutionary biocrude. Envirocompanies, Inc. is a 100% American owned logistics company, dedicated to improving the energy industry by making it green and environmentally friendly. "We are looking forward to working with SSTP under our Strategic Alliance to produce value added products to be introduced to the petroleum industry. We will begin converting their revolutionary biocrude into BG100 biogas, jet fuel, marine fuel and diesel. We will refine, blend and assimilate the end products to our large, diverse existing client base. Envirocompanies, Inc. is fully licensed in the fuel and chemical industry in the state of Texas. We are anxiously working to reduce and help eliminate the dependency of foreign oil," stated Robert Romero, President and CEO of Envirocompanies, Inc. Seven very successful companies make up "Envirocompanies, Inc.": Enviro Solutions, Enviro Waste Solutions, Petrofuels Quality Marketing, Petroleum Express, Webb Communications, Bayou Construction and High Island Petro Chemical. For more information, please visit http://www.envirocompanies.com/ -- Petrofuels Quality Marketing is the flagship company of the Envirocompanies Group. Petrofuels specializes in the gathering and marketing of various hydrocarbon and petrochemical streams, heavy and light fuel oil cutters, marine fuel cutters and feed stocks. Petrofuels may also purchase co-products or by-products from various manufacturing processes. -- High Island Petrochemical, LLC operates an atmospheric distillation process which separates light fractions from heavy fractions through heat and various distillation processes. After separation, each fraction stream is marketed into the respective area for which that product is viable. -- Enviro Solutions' management has been in the hydrocarbon recycling and related businesses since 1982. Its experience in handling waste and recyclable streams will ensure its customers their by-products are handled correctly. -- Bayou Construction & Excavation, LLC is a rapidly growing and very aggressive company that caters to the refining, petrochemical, pipeline, transportation and liquid natural gas industries, as well as private and commercial property owners. -- Petroleum Express treats each customer as if they were its ONLY customer. They specialize in chemical, petrochemical, waste water, lube oils, and used oil transportation services. They are a bulk liquid contract carrier servicing the continental US. They maintain an updated fleet of Freightliner trucks and make sure they meet all industry standards. John Rivera, CEO of Sustainable Power Corp., stated: "With today's Strategic Alliance we have closed the circle for total self sufficiency in the energy market. We are not dependent on any one feed stock to manufacture, produce, refine and sell our Vetroleum(TM) biocrude family of green energy products. We can now concentrate on the production of our Vetroleum(TM) biocrude and let the experts with more than 30 years' experience, Envirocompanies, Inc., complete the circle and bring up to 140 million gallons per day to market. I believe that with the expertise of the Romero Family and Envirocompanies, Inc. we can be a major contributor to our goals of energy independence for the America we love." About Envirocompanies, Inc. Envirocompanies.com is provided to our current and future clients to showcase the abilities, products, and services of seven very successful companies. All of our companies are built on the belief that hard work, honesty, and a can do attitude can accomplish anything. We strive to be the best at what we do, and it shows in everything we provi
Volumes? Ethanol 'works'... but what volumes can we grow? CTL 'works'... but how fast can we scale it up? (It'll take 20 years -- see Hirsch report). Just because something works in the lab does not mean it can actually be scaled up to provide the same enormous VOLUME of oil that the world currently consumes. If the oil the world consumes in one year were placed in an enormous building, that building would be 1 km long and 1 km wide... and 4 km high! Can turkey guts and rice husks really supply that enormous volume of high energy density liquid fuels? I don't think so. The only real answer to peak oil is to use less oil. That means massively upgrading public transport, and over the next 20 years rezoning the land around the train and tram stations to New Urbanism to have the population density to justify the public transport. Sorry, but the only answer is to become "more European than the Europeans" in city design... and Australia and America have a lot of catching up to do.