A little chemistry you waited for.

Well if anyone is interesting I have something to tell that will affect us all in one way form or another ( yea ).

Well we all know that the government and the major gas companies ( exxon ect ) are working on creating a hydrogen fuel cell for cars where they run off of the protons of the hydrogen atom or something and the only by product is H2O. That's still in the process, but you think, we are fine with gas in our quads and dirtbikes, ect. This will interest you.

I read in Discover magazine that a chemist that owns a recycling refinery has discovered, and can sucessfully break down any compound with carbon ( wood, bodies, tires, plastic, (free)dom fry grease ) and reconfigure the atomic structure into what they want ( its more complicated then that but I dont want to bore anyone ). Well, think about that, carbon based substances... reconfigure... bling bling.. He can take ( what he does now ) 200 tons of agricultural waste ( chicken heads, organs, feathers essentially ) and with that, he can get I think 1500 barrels of crude oil in its purest form. from that can come gasoline.

Plug a city sewege line into this refinery, and have some gas, hell yea! It works, and they are building the refineries in the US ( one is going up in phili right now ). I think the statistics right now with just those agricultural wastes we can get some 4 million barrels of oil a year ( we import some 4.1 barrels a year from the middle east ).

So really, we took a non renewable resourse, and made a process that usually takes thousands, millions of years to do, and did it in a day. And, its domestic, anyone want to imagine what gas prices are going to be when we have mass production from these plants? Whoa..

Jay

(IF anyone else knows anymore about this then me please fix, my chemistry professor explained it to me today and I was like whoa, I will get a copy of the artical later )

As with all the other great ideas on "Alternative Fuel" the oil companies will buy it then hide it. This idea is not outside the realm of possibility. Look at what they have done with diamonds. They now have a synthetic Diamond that can fool the most seasoned expert. That's why diamonds now have "mine serial numbers" or "certificates of authenticity."

I hope they succeed!

man, my heads gonna be messed up for days after hearin that, where did u find that info, its quite interesting

Quote:

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I hope they succeed!

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If they are building a plant in Phili, I believe they will succeed don't you? :devil

I will get a photocopy of the artical tomorrow so I can give you guys more information on it.

Jay

Here, try this. http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/sto...dae6.727,.html

Heres some more.
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Smithfield to turn hog waste into diesel fuel
USA: February 24, 2003

CHICAGO - Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD.N), the nation's largest pork producer, said last week it will build a $20 million facility in Utah that will use waste from 500,000 hogs to make biodiesel, a renewable vehicle fuel.

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be made from any fat including vegetable oil and used cooking oil. About 15 million gallons were used in the United States last year.
Smithfield said it will be the major partner in BEST BioFuel LLC, a partnership that will build the plant at Smithfield-owned swine production facilities near Milford, Utah.

"Livestock waste can be a source of clean, renewable vehicle fuel," said Robert F. Urell, Smithfield senior vice president, engineering and environmental affairs, in a news release.

The Smithfield facility will be built at Circle Four Farms in southwest Utah. Construction is scheduled to start in April, pending final approval of a conditional use permit and a permit from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

Smithfield's Utah swine operation produces about 1 million market hogs a year, and the biodiesel project will use the waste from about half of those hogs, the company said.

"The Utah facility is a specially suited location for this because we are able to order the waste in pipes," said Dennis Treacy, Smithfield's vice president of environmental affairs and government relations.

About 90 percent of U.S. biodiesel is made from soybean oil. U.S. biodiesel use increased to about 15 million gallons in 2002 from 500,000 in 1999.

For the Smithfield project hog waste will be collected and processed into biogas which will then be converted into biomethanol. The biomethanol will be transported to a plant outside of Utah for processing into biodiesel fuel using soybean oil, animal fat or used cooking oil.

Use of animal waste for biodiesel is rare but the methanol from the waste could be used for the fuel, said Fred Mayes, a manager at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.

"By starting with methanol, which is a fairly clean substance compared with grease, you are improving the mix and my guess is you would be improving some of the specific characteristics of the biodiesel," Mayes said.

The Smithfield facility could start producing fuels as early as October, the company said.

Smithfield Foods is the leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and processed meats, and the largest hog producer, in the United States.

Story by Bob Burgdorfer
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

I hope this is true, but if so, I tend to agree with highlander. The oil companies have been cutting a fat hog, so to speak, and would probably do anything to hide an innovation that would lower fuel prices to where they should be. If Smithfield succeeds, I'm going to jet my bike fat, buy a '68 Coupe de Ville, and convert my house to oil heating. :p