3 Men from Wales solve carbon emissions problem?

3 Men from Wales solve carbon emissions problem?

news.yahoo.com

QUEENSFERRY (Reuters) - The world's richest corporations and finest minds spend billions trying to solve the problem of carbon emissions, but three fishing buddies in North Wales believe they have cracked it.

They have developed a box which they say can be fixed underneath a car in place of the exhaust to trap the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming -- including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide -- and emit mostly water vapor.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I love a good underdog story. If this device does what these men claim it could be a boon for the environment. They say their box can handle the emissions from 1 tank of gas from an average car. I wonder what kind of infrastructure would have to be in place to be able to outfit the average driver's car with these things. How would they be collected and processed? How easy would it be to replace? Would it be possible to make them 100% compatible across different makes and models of automobile to allow average gas stations to offer them with a fill up?
Lots of questions would still need to be answered, but it looks promising.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

What do you do with the boxes when you're done with them? Do you realize how much junk this would generate?

According to the article, the boxes would need to be collected, but the contents of the boxes would be able to be processed into biodiesel. They estimate that 10 factories would be needed to processes the boxes of 30,000,000 cars. It would probably need to be stored in special dumpsters that would be picked up weekly or so by the factories. (just a guess on my part)

I guess this wasn't as interesting as I thought...

One thing I'd also wonder is how much biodiesel could be made from these emissions. Would it be enough to make it economical as well as "green"?

Personally, I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming on account of the warming on other planets in the solar system, so I just don't care that much about this news.

I don't believe that man is the sole cause of global warming, and I doubt that he is the main cause as well. That being said, I also believe in being as efficient as possible in our use of global resources.

Why cause pollution if it is unneccessary? I believe in being as "green" as economically feasible. This is not to be confused with being as "green" as possible. These are 2 completly different things.

I recently had to redo my roof on my house. I seriously considered using solar shingles as opposed to standard asphalt shingles. This not only would have been "green" but would obviously have the additional effect of reducing my monthly electric bill. I have a great, south facing roof surface that has no shade at all, that would have been perfect for solar. The problem was that the grants that were available to off set the cost of this project weren't available to residents of the town, because my town owns it's own electric company. This made the project no longer economically feasible, and I ended up using standard shingles.

Originally posted by BomSquad
I don't believe that man is the sole cause of global warming, and I doubt that he is the main cause as well. That being said, I also believe in being as efficient as possible in our use of global resources.

Why cause pollution if it is unneccessary? I believe in being as "green" as economically feasible. This is not to be confused with being as "green" as possible. These are 2 completly different things.

I recently had to redo my roof on my house. I seriously considered using solar shingles as opposed to standard asphalt shingles. This not only would have been "green" but would obviously have the additional effect of reducing my monthly electric bill. I have a great, south facing roof surface that has no shade at all, that would have been perfect for solar. The problem was that the grants that were available to off set the cost of this project weren't available to residents of the town, because my town owns it's own electric company. This made the project no longer economically feasible, and I ended up using standard shingles.

I would like to add that while I do not believe that emissions of carbon dioxide by man are a serious problem, it is beyond any serious dispute that cars, factories, and power plants produce smog, which causes all sorts of problems. Getting beyond carbon combustion for this reason is certainly a commendable goal, but the Welsh scientists' discovery here will not contribute in this regard, as far as I am aware, unless the ethanol processing does not emit carbon compounds.

At the very least, it could move the smog out of the densely populated cities into a more remote region. Improving air quality for millions of city dwellers world wide.
Also, they stated that their product could also be fitted to factories, thereby reducing the emissions of the processing factories that are reducing the emissions from cars....hehe

Dubbed "Greenbox," the technology developed by organic chemist Derek Palmer and engineers Ian Houston and John Jones could, they say, be used for cars, buses, lorries and eventually buildings and heavy industry, including power plants.

Original article

Originally posted by uberarcanist

Originally posted by BomSquad
I don't believe that man is the sole cause of global warming, and I doubt that he is the main cause as well. That being said, I also believe in being as efficient as possible in our use of global resources.

Why cause pollution if it is unneccessary? I believe in being as "green" as economically feasible. This is not to be confused with being as "green" as possible. These are 2 completly different things.

I recently had to redo my roof on my house. I seriously considered using solar shingles as opposed to standard asphalt shingles. This not only would have been "green" but would obviously have the additional effect of reducing my monthly electric bill. I have a great, south facing roof surface that has no shade at all, that would have been perfect for solar. The problem was that the grants that were available to off set the cost of this project weren't available to residents of the town, because my town owns it's own electric company. This made the project no longer economically feasible, and I ended up using standard shingles.

I would like to add that while I do not believe that emissions of carbon dioxide by man are a serious problem, it is beyond any serious dispute that cars, factories, and power plants produce smog, which causes all sorts of problems. Getting beyond carbon combustion for this reason is certainly a commendable goal, but the Welsh scientists' discovery here will not contribute in this regard, as far as I am aware, unless the ethanol processing does not emit carbon compounds.

Hmmm...that's funny. 99% of the world's enviromental scientists would disagree with you guys on this. I'll stick with the science myself.

J.

Yay for bandwagon appeals, Jimbo!!!! So, how do you explain the warming that is going on at the other planets?

Your typical driver hardly ever checks the oil at fill-up. I strongly doubt you could get people to swap one of these out either. I only see this becoming common if it could be replaced at oil change.

[edit on 19-7-2007 by apc]

There is no consensus that global warming is caused by mankind. There are numerous, and prominent scientists that disagee with mankind being the cause.

Earlier this year, a group of prominent scientists came forward to question the so-called “consensus” that the Earth faces a “climate emergency.” On April 6, 2006, 60 scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists.

US Senate Commitee on Environment and Public Works

But now a shock: Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick. In his original publications of the stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of more than 70 different climate records.

But it wasnt so. McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a way that can only be described as mistaken.

Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called Monte Carlo analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!

A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics.

How about just not creating the 'mess' to begin with!

All you have to do is get your engine to burn the offending emission products. So not only do you have much less pollution, you also get a 50-100% gas-mileage increase!!!

Big Oil - The Problem and The Solution Video

That's a pretty interesting product. I wish they gave more details on how the product actually works. Like what substance the "refining rod" was made out of, and how it breaks down molecules into their individual elements and converts them to a plasma state at such low temperatures.

I sent away for a quote to see what the pricing is like for their kit. We'll see what happens.

Originally posted by BomSquad
That's a pretty interesting product. I wish they gave more details on how the product actually works. Like what substance the "refining rod" was made out of, and how it breaks down molecules into their individual elements and converts them to a plasma state at such low temperatures.

I sent away for a quote to see what the pricing is like for their kit. We'll see what happens.

There's nothing really mysterious about how it works - in general!

The 'refining rod' is plain steel and acts as a heat accumulator which is how the high temperatures needed to convert the fuel to a plasma is achieved.

The way the rod length is determined in the video I'm not sure about - seems pretty 'out there'! There will obviously be an optimal length I suppose so it's as good a way as any

Many people have being carrying out similar 'conversions' for many years now so it's not a scam. Check out the link below.

More Gas-Mileage Solution

Originally posted by uberarcanist
Personally, I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming on account of the warming on other planets in the solar system, so I just don't care that much about this news.

This statement is exactly why the Global Warming ™ needs to be abolished! I want breathable air! You should care about this, everyone should! Its got zero relevance to the debate on climate change this is about pollution, and we MUST stop polluting.

Originally posted by apc
Your typical driver hardly ever checks the oil at fill-up. I strongly doubt you could get people to swap one of these out either. I only see this becoming common if it could be replaced at oil change.

Well I say force them. If this invention works and will give us fresh breathable air again then force them. Just like ciggie smokers are forced to be considerate.

Force them? ... on what grounds? How will you enforce it? Gonna have cops at every gas station watching to make sure people swap their boxes?

I'm all for providing incentives to encourage people to take action. Forcing people to do something that has nothing to do with public safety (no matter what one's opinion on greenhouse gases is) doesn't jive well with me nor most... except for Socialists.

But even if incentives are provided, or heaven forbid laws are passed, people will not change out some box with every fill-up. Again if they can increase the capacity so it could be changed with every oil change, I don't doubt it will succeed.

Originally posted by apc
(no matter what one's opinion on greenhouse gases is)

How about, it has nothing, ZIP ALL to do with greenhouse gasses, climate change or global warming.

What this does have to do with is breathing clean air.

And yes, this little box sticks on the end of your tail pipe and flashes amber when it needs changing, when it flashes red youve had 3 days to do the job and if a cop or concerned citizen sees it, you get a fine. Sorted. Of course I dont know how this gizmo works but roll with me... why do you see this as bad and something we shouldnt enforce?

Screw it then. How about we just force everyone to go buy electric cars? Gotta have that clean air, right?

Compliance should be strongly encouraged with incentives. For example, owning a vehicle equipped with these could net you a tax deduction comparable to what is received with hybrids.

But even then, you are assuming Joe Driver would have any clue how to work it no matter how much instruction they received. Half of them have trouble figuring out how the damn pump works. I worked at a gas station once... I was amazed by how much difficulty some people had.

There's a reason quick-lube places exist... to provide common routine maintenance for people who couldn't find the 710 cap if their life depended onit.

Again, if the capacity could be increased to handle 3000 miles of travel instead of 300, it could be easily swapped at oil change. This would completely negate the need to force anybody to do anything, dramatically increase practicality, while simultaneously increasing the appeal of compliance incentives.