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"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.
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".
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
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.
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.
...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?
Do they pay us to pump their fuel?
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.
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."
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.
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.