Researchers Make Gasoline From Cow Dung

McDrewbie writes "Yahoo! News has an article about Japanese researchers extracting a small amount of gasoline from 3.5oz of cow dung. The process uses application of high heat and pressure. Hopefully, when more information is released, we can find out how much energy it takes to produce this gasoline and how energy efficient the process is."

oh so they discovered something new

[mgabrys_sf]

So new we have an active refienery in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerizat ion [wikipedia.org]

At least Japan knows how to PR the tech - you never hear about it here - which is just sad.

Re:oh so they discovered something new

[admactanium]

So new we have an active refienery in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerizat [wikipedia.org] ion

At least Japan knows how to PR the tech - you never hear about it here - which is just sad.

actually there was a story (maybe two) about thermal depolymerization on slashdot years ago. that's where i first read about the technology. it was prompted by an article in discover magazine [discover.com] about their first plant in carthage, MO. it's a pretty good article and i'm surprised we haven't heard more about how the carthage plant has been doing. all i've been able to find about it recently is that they had to do some modifications to the exhaust system because the smell was bothering the residents too much (which is probably quite a feat in a place that produces livestock).

i actually thought the increase in oil prices would probably help this technology along. the only thing anyone has questioned about the process is the cost efficiency of making oil from thermal depolymerization versus the cost of just buying it from opec countries and/or successfully mining it from the oil shale in canada. i think the depolymerization method obviously has a lot more positives in its favor.

i also read that the livestock manufacturers, now understanding that their waste was actually useful and profitable for someone, had decided to charge for their waste product rather than just give it away, which was at least somewhat assumed by the cost analysis of depolymerization to begin with. even though it made sense at the time to assume that rather than paying for people to remove biological waste, they would rather have someone do it for free or even pay them for it, you can never overestimate the greed of corporations. i sure hope the technology continues to develop until it becomes more cost efficient. even if it can only reduce our needs for oil a small percentage, that would be a significant difference in our reliance on opec.

Re:Same problem as with other "alternative fuels"

[replicant108]

"We most of all need ways to reduce our consumption."

I've often heard that stated.

Unfortunately, since energy resources bestow both military and economic advantages to nation states, it is hard to see how consumption cn be reduced in a competitive global environment.

Re:Same problem as with other "alternative fuels"

[roman_mir]

People will not reduce consumption, the demographics are just too wrong for that. There is a necessity for a global cataclysm, a really bad air-borne desease that wipes out say 70% of the entire population. We can't rely on wars to do this, because to achieve the same numbers we have to go nuclear and what good is that for the environment?

That ain't even the HALF of it!

[NoData]

Its amazing what scientists can create.

Oh the ass dump to gas pump tech is nothin. Did you RTFA?! There was far more disturbing technology at the end. Check this out, clart :

In a separate experiment revealing another unusual business potential for cow dung, another group of researchers has successfully extracted an aromatic ingredient of vanilla from cattle dung, said Miki Tsuruta, a Sekisui Chemical Co. spokeswoman. The extracted ingredient, vanillin, can be used as fragrance in shampoo and candles, she said.

Wow. Brings a whole new meaning to "tastes like shit."

Re:Won't all the methane from the cows be worse?

[Draknor]

Great idea! I think the government should let the markets decide, and stop subsidizing [ucsusa.org] oil companies [progress.org].

After all, the market has clearly decided that the big oil companies, with their record-breaking profits [consumeraffairs.com], are the appropriate market solution to our energy problems. So why is the government interfering with the market and giving away $7 billion [freerepublic.com] to the oil companies?

Not just for the cows.

[inconceivable]

Funny this article came up. The University of Illinois is doing something similar with pig manure... Check it out at http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news3557.htm l [uiuc.edu] The article isn't very detailed, but it is interesting.

Re:THIS DOESN'T PUT A DENT IN HOW MUCH GAS WE CONS

[shawb]

True, Japan may only produce about half a million tons of cow manure, but the United States Produces somewhere on the order of five hundred million tons of cow manure a year. Multiply the amount of gas by 1000, and you get 1,653,465,000 gallons of gas per year. That's about 4 million gallons of gas per day, so maybe 1% of our gasoline could be supplied by cow manure. That's not including other fuels that can likely be extracted. Couple this with potential in-situ operations where the manure is converted to energy directly on the farm and you end up with reduced fuel for delivery, although most likely slightly reduced efficiency so we'll call that a wash.

Not that 1% of our fuel seems like a very big deal, but in order to replace petroleum as our primary fuel we are going to have to squeeze every bit of energy out of alternative sources and greatly increase efficiency if we want to maintain our standard of living. Thermal depolymerization may just be one of the pieces in the puzzle of keeping everything running. And the process can be run on many materials besdides just cow manure: first there are many other animals in the united states that create wastes (including people) that could be treated in a similar method, as well as offal from slaughterhouses, used fryer and industrial vegetable oil, possibly waste paper and construction lumber, grain silage... the list goes on and on. Combine the energy from that with some wind power, some solar power, some geothermal power, some hydropower, some biodiesel (where crops would be grown specifically for making into fuel, as opposed to using wastes from existing processes) and a good bit of nuclear power and we can hopefully put a serious dent into our petroleum usage. Efficiency increases through technology and plain old reduction in energy wasteful lifestyle choices will eventually have to fill in the gaps.

There is not going to be one magic bullet that fills our energy needs, we are going to have to develop and use many different sources to fuel future societies and waste reclaimation is one step in the whole issue. We will have to develop and test many different methods to find the right solution for the right application.