Ladies and Gentlemen Allow Me to Introduce the Cat Car

Kelmar writes "CNN is running a story about how a German inventor has found a way to power a car using dead cats. Yes you read that right. According to the inventor he can produce the biodiesel fuel at the cost of about $0.30 (US) per liter. Needless to say many animal rights activists are upset by this development, and some are saying that it is illegal to use animals for this purpose in Germany."

Dead animal fuel

[binkzz]

While it may not be such a good idea to find stray cats to fill up your car, I think the development is certainly interesting.

If you take BSE for instance, where tens of thousands of cows are slaughtered 'just in case' and are unfit for consumption - what if we could use those animals for fuel? Or maybe even insects or Republicans. Ridding your house of pests may fill your car up at the same time. Africa may be able sell its grasshopper plague with enough profit to buy more food.

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Re:Dead Animals

[aussie_a]

Pfft, we've been using dead animals to run cars for years [wikipedia.org] and they've never complained before. This is nothing new ;)

Also, pets are killed on a daily basis [shelterreform.org] in the hundreds, at least this way we're putting them to good use.

Re:Bild is s**t

[nucal]

Separated at birth:

Bild [t-online.de] and Sun [thesun.co.uk]

Re:Hoax

[hattig]

This is a particularly dangerous hoax, given the extremity of Animal Rights Protesters. This could have put this guy, his family and his employees in serious danger of being attacked and seriously hurt, if not killed. Especially now the story has gone onto CNN and other media...

It is more than irresponsible for the newspaper to publish this type of story without any proof, without contacting the people involved, and so on. It might be a tabloid newspaper, but that doesn't give them the freedom to lie! It just means the published stuff is more 'people centric' than 'political/business centric'.

come on fellas...

[aggieben]

I know this is /., but really. "siting"?

Don't you even have a spell-check you can run on stuff before you post it to the front page? If not a programmatic spell check, how about eyeballing something for about 10 seconds? Something like "siting" should stick out like a sore thumb to you. If it doesn't, maybe you should get someone else to edit...

Just like Back to the Future predicted!

[mrb000gus]

Back to the Future was set in 1985, at the end of the first / beginning of the second movie he travels 30 years into the future, and voila - in 2015 the cars use waste as fuel.

Liposuction

[DFJA]

What happens to the material removed when people have lipsuction? I'd have thought this would be a good source of fuel......

Re:Inventor misquoted?

[Jesus_666]

The Bild is Germanys largest tabloid and is well known for not always reporting overly accurate, to put it mildly.

I quote: "Flying Saucer Shot Down Over Russia"
Yes, what's probably the most popular publication in Germany is seriously trying to tell us that the Russians have taken down an UFO.

The BILD's "articles" (which usually take up about as much space as the headlines) are varying in quality between grotesque oversimplification, blunt populism, sheer nonsense lacking any kind of relation to the real world and a mix of the above.
I'd recommend only using it as toilet paper but that'd probably make your ass dumber.


The scary thing about the BILD is that many people are actually relying on it for their daily news. I don't even want to think about how the upcoming elections will be affected by people making their decisions based on the bullshit written in this rag. (Note: I don't want to insult actual bovine excrements by comparing them to BILD articles.)

101 Uses for a Dead Cat.

[cbiltcliffe]

Anybody else remember that old, slightly disturbing book?

Probably came out about 20 years ago.

I guess it's outdated, now.

102 Uses for a Dead Cat?

Funerals?

[mosb1000]

That means it could also offset the cost of a funeral. Cremation is much too expensive, and you don't really get anything in return. This way, you can actually make money while dealing with your beloved family members remains. I'll bet your 250 lb mother could make more than 20 gal of bio-diesel.

Re:Inventor misquoted?

[uradu]

To our US friends, think of it as a weird mix of National Inquirer and Fox News, plus some obligatory daily nudity. There's nothing like a nude lady on the front page to pull you into articles on politics. One of my favorite "populist" headlines still has to be the one when the latest pope was established: "We are pope!" (since he's from Germany)

Re:Fuel Lobby?

[surprise_audit]

I guess they've gotta be pissed about what Brazil is doing, then. According to a program I saw parts of on TV last night, Brazil is near enough self-sufficient fuel-wise, making alcohol from sugar cane (or was that beets?) to supplement oil-based gasoline. At the time the program was made, Brazil was turning out enough alcohol per year to be able to reduce their oil consumption by over 400 million barrels.

Or maybe the whole country got stinking drunk for a year and didn't drive at all, thereby saving gas...

Re:Fuel Lobby?

[Strider-BG]

Yeah, it was Modern Marvels on the History channel about sugar.

During the oil crisis Brazil invested heavily in sugar production to make ethanol. They also worked with GM such that all GM cars made in Brazil are flex-fuel. They can run off 100% ethanol, 100% gas, or anything in between.

They said that they're moved from 90% dependence on foreign oil to 15%. You still need gas for chilly mornings so the cars have a small gas-only tank and then switches to pure ethanol after it's warm.

They were showing prices and ethanol was less than half the cost of gas. They also had a government mandate in the 80's that all fuel stations must carry gas, ethanol, and diesel. Much easier to solve the distribution problem that way.

Personally I'm a diesel/bio-diesel fan as I prefer the power characteristics and because ethanol in the US is made from corn by ADM who are decidedly evil but renewables of any stripe are a step in the right direction.

Re:How about "Petrel"? Or "Vin Diesel"?

[Old Wolf]

You gotta love how they advertise their leaded petrol (do they even have the right to sell that ?) : "a bit of lead never hurt anyone".

Petrol lead is less toxic than benzene and the dozens of other chemicals that were added to unleaded petrol to replace the lead.