Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

155 MPH Biofuel Truck Breaks Speed Record

Posted by Soulskill on from the zoom-zoom dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team of students from Boise University recently shattered the world land speed record for biofuel vehicles by traveling 155 mph in a vegetable oil-powered pick-up truck dubbed the Greenspeed. To achieve the speed record the vehicle was upgraded with a compound-turbocharged 5.9 liter Cummins straight-six diesel engine that produces 700 horsepower, and it ran on an oil mix consisting of cottonseed and sunflower oil."

6 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by fozzydabear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So someone put a huge, guzzling turbo diesel into a truck to get it to go 155mph using vegetable oil which has the same carbon chain length as diesel except three of them are bonded as a triglyceride. Vegetable oil being a niche fuel and will never be able to scale up as a serious fossil fuel replacement. What a useless demonstration.

  2. Re:I want one. by BigBlueOx · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's close. Real close. Once the problem of eliminating the capacitive reluctance inside the hydrocoptic marzelvanes is solved (simply an engineering fix) control of the milford trunions will in the range of 90%. Any day now.

  3. Re:I want one. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is more of a So What. The BioFuel Truck can travel at 155MPH so what. That thing is puffing out carbon and smog there is no tomorrow . There isn't any words how many MilePerGallon. Yea yea you can regrow the plants and they will take the carbon back... But how much extra carbon will we produce to make the oil. How many Carbon Eating trees will we need to cut down to grow this material.

    Our Roads cannot handle 155MPH anyways. Even where there is no speed limit most people don't go that fast.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:Grandfather told me: Eat everything on your pla by The+Creator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Food cannot stop starvation in a growing population, only family planning can do that. Family planning comes with education.

    Trying to stop starvation with food is like trying to put out a fire with fuel.

    --

    FRA: STFU GTFO
  5. Re:I want one. by migla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And what about the burning of food stuffs in cars?!? That sounds totally insane, when there are people about that rather eat those sunflowers. It would be as crazy as if we based the entire economy on lying and greed!

    --
    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  6. no conversion in the article nor in the summary? by Isaac+Remuant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    /Grumpy face. (I don't like to complain but... )

    How many countries use mp/h and how many km/h? Would it kill them to write the conversion in the article/summary? Just for inclusion sake?

    --
    "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.