Japanese Make Gasoline From Cattle Dung, page 1

posted on Mar, 5 2006 @ 10:31 AM

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TOKYO - Scientists in energy-poor Japan said Friday they have found a new source of gasoline — cattle dung.

Sakae Shibusawa, an agriculture engineering professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said his team has successfully extracted .042 ounces of gasoline from every 3.5 ounces of cow dung by applying high pressure and heat.

This is is great cause as it states in the article this will help in the disposal of large amounts of waste produced by the cattle industry and we get gas out of it too.

whaaa

posted on Mar, 5 2006 @ 11:12 AM

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This is truly great news! With all the BS that comes out of Washington we will be energy independent as soon as the cracking plants can be built.
Combine this new fuel with all the hot air from DC and we may all be driving Muscle Cars again. Little GTOoooooooo!

Just as the $2.50 a gal petrol had me airing up my bike tires and giving it a good squirt with wd40; thank you deadboi, you have given me hope.

Wait a second, all the technology to bring this discovery to fruition is owned by the oil companys. Nevermind.

Still anything that helps ween US from ME oil is a good thing. Thank you Sakae Shibusawa, may the rising sun shine brightly on your sholders.

donwhite

posted on Mar, 5 2006 @ 07:19 PM

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Originally posted by whaaa[/I]This is truly great news! Combine this new fuel with all the hot air from DC and we may all be driving Muscle Cars again. Just as the $2.50 a gal petrol had me airing up my bike tires; thank you deadboi, you have given me hope. Wait a second, the technology to bring this discovery to fruition is owned by oil companies. Never mind! Still anything that helps wean the US from ME oil is good. Thank you Sakae Shibusawa, may the rising sun shine brightly on your shoulders.

Well, do the numbers. It works out to 30,000 bbls a year. Add up what it would cost to collect this “golden” dung, and you can see you would expend more fuel trucking the stuff around the country than you could make out of it. Like ADM’s ethanol. Not even a zero sum gain. ADM is a net energy loser. But one hell of a good tax money drain on the US of A. Say “Thank You” Senator Dole.

whaaa

posted on Mar, 5 2006 @ 08:19 PM
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Gee, thanks Don, for dashing my hopes to once again drive a Barracuda, GTO, 442 or Hemi or even a 350 Nova.

I'm not good with math but your numbers probably add up. Zero sum gain for the "golden dung". Back to the Schwinn. Thanks Sen. Dole.

Beachcoma

posted on Mar, 5 2006 @ 11:47 PM
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I don't think this technology is meant to supply fuel to muscle cars or other such fuel-guzzlers. The Japs are pretty good in the arena of hybrid vehicles and other low fuel consumption vehicle. Fuel to power those kind of cars would be more sensible.

I don't know the numbers, but I think it would be cost-effective if the operation is decentralized. At any rate, from the article, the scientists say that they are still improving the efficiency of the technology to make it commercially viable within the next five years.

Perhaps they can make the generator unit small enough to produce the fuel needs of a small farming community. I've seen a similiar German invention that converts all the farm wastes into small dry pellets that can be either disposed off easily or fed back into the machine to be burned and produce electricity.

Pretty cool stuff.

donwhite

posted on Mar, 6 2006 @ 01:39 PM
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Originally posted by Beachcoma[/I] I don't think this technology is meant to supply fuel to fuel guzzlers. The Japanese are pretty good in hybrid vehicles and other low fuel consumption vehicles. I don't know the numbers, but I think it would[/I] be cost-effective if the operation is decentralized. The scientists are improving efficiency to make it commercial. Perhaps they can make the generator small enough to produce the fuel needs of a small farming community. I've seen a German invention that converts the farm wastes into small dry pellets that can be either disposed of easily or fed back into the machine to be burned and produce electricity. Pretty cool stuff.

I have no idea how many cows there are in America. The rough rule of thumb I calculated is “A half million cows equals 30 thousand barrels of fuel.” I was using 42 gal to the bbl. Any help is to be appreciated. Yes, I can imagine how in states like Wyoming or the Dakota’s, small communities could be fueled by cow dung. Maybe the school kids could collect it during the summer vacation? I’m skeptical of all this vegetables to fuel hype. Like grow our way out of addiction.

The cost to prepare land for planting, the cost of planting and plowing, the cost of harvesting, storing, transporting, and so one, including the cost of fertilizer and etc., makes renewable energy more a political ploy than a real life plan. The only thing we can hope for is to greatly improve gas mileage - like to make 50 mpg the MINIMUM allowed, and to convert to electric cars for places like Manhattan, re-charged by coal fired steam generating plants. We can, we must, clean up the discharge from those plants.