T Nation

400 Miles Per Gallon

Politics and World Issues
#21

[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
Now THIS I could really get behind - turn almost all our garbage into oil. Even though it’s not an alternative fuel, this process serves double duty with the extra benefit of producing a cleaner end product.

(Follow the link to read the entire article)
No More Waste, No More Pollution, Plenty of Oil
[This article is reprinted from Discover Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 5, 5 May 2003]
In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really. “This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind,” says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. “This process can deal with the world’s waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming.” Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true.

“Everybody says that,” says Appel. He is a tall, affable entrepreneur who has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/environment_new_recycling_process_2003.html

…[/quote]

Snake oil salesmen have been claimiing this for as long as I can remember.

Back in the 70’s someone actually sold a similar process like this to a local snack food company. It was a complete disaster.

I will have to see it to believe it.

#22

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Snake oil salesmen have been claimiing this for as long as I can remember.

Back in the 70’s someone actually sold a similar process like this to a local snack food company. It was a complete disaster.

I will have to see it to believe it.[/quote]

Have you written to the notoriously, conspiracy driven mag “Discover” yet and let them know they’ve been duped?

Anything Into Oil - update
DISCOVER Vol. 25 No. 07
July 2004 Technology
http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-04/features/anything-into-oil/

Or write the company that is actually DOING the process and tell them that they built a plant for nothing.

Changing World Technologies (CWT)
Our first TCP plant is fully operational and producing fuel, and other useful products from agricultural and livestock waste streams.
http://www.changingworldtech.com/when/index.asp

Regardless of this technology Zap, the real point I was trying to make is that we ALREADY HAD the technology to convert COAL into oil that can be refined into gas for at least 70 years. Unless you have an inside scoop on a coal shortage we don’t know about, how is it we can ever run out of oil?

Probably the biggest reason they don’t want to hype this technology is because we have TOO MUCH oil in the first place. Either way you look at it the gas shortage is all A LIE.

Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits
Internal Texaco strategy memo: “[T]he most critical factor facing the refining industry on the West Coast is the surplus of refining capacity, and the surplus gasoline production capacity. (The same situation exists for the entire U.S. refining industry.) Supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline.” The memo went on to discuss a sucessful campaign in Washington State to shrink refined supply by removing other additives in the gasoline that filled gas volume.

Another Mobil memo shows the company promoted tough regulations in California to shut down an independent refiner. A Chevron memo acknowledged the industry wide need to shutter refineries and discussed how refiners were responding in kind.

#23

JTF, we have a bunch of technologies that we can use to supplement our oil supply or we can use in place of oil.

The problem is that they are just too expensive. While I feel we have been getting gouged recently, oil is still the cheapest alternative.

#24

It does seem that a combination of gas, solar and battery automobile could be created on the cheap. No?

#25

Let’s ask one question.

If one of these capitalist and/or struggling auto companies could produce an engine economically that would allow it to sell more cars than the other auto makers combined, do you think they would take advantage of this and the resulting increase in the company’s share price and their personal stock options? I would.

The possibility of a 100 MPG engine may exist, but the cost may be too prohibitive to put into production. Making a fantastic $200,000 car is easy. The hard ones are the $20,000 cars.

There was also a reference to an engine that ran on water. I am sure fission hasn’t reached production on any scale yet.

Try to think things through before just blindly posting garbage as fact.

#26

[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
This guy cryo’d (cryogenically froze) all of the engine parts in his hybrid Honda and went from getting 50mpg to 120mpg.

The cryonic process is interesting in it’s own right and something NASCAR teams and other professional race teams have done to high stress parts for years. (for longevity not neccesarily fuel efficiency)

A very simplified explanation is that it’s a tempering process (freezing at -300 deg f) that rearranges the molecules of an object to a more perfect state.
http://www.nitrofreeze.com/index.html[/quote]

I remember hearing about this in Materials class. If you look at the phase diagram for steel, there are three distinct metals. I think when you treat teh metal at like 30 minutes, stell takes on Austintite (it has been a couple years). I do remember that the metal is not stable at room temp, but it takes (maybe . . years) a while to get back to ferrite. Another issue with Austentite is that it is much more brittle than ferrite. It has higher ultimate strength props, but undergoes more catastrophic failure (breaks rather than cracks). obviously, something you would like to avoid.
just my $.02

#27

[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
This guy cryo’d (cryogenically froze) all of the engine parts in his hybrid Honda and went from getting 50mpg to 120mpg.

The cryonic process is interesting in it’s own right and something NASCAR teams and other professional race teams have done to high stress parts for years. (for longevity not neccesarily fuel efficiency)

A very simplified explanation is that it’s a tempering process (freezing at -300 deg f) that rearranges the molecules of an object to a more perfect state.
http://www.nitrofreeze.com/index.html[/quote]

Do you have any idea the amount of energy it would take to freeze a working engine to almost absolute zero? This is a rediculous application to even suggest to increase gas mileage. The cost benefit will NEVER work for production cars.

#28

[quote]flabtoslab wrote:
There was an episode of 60 minutes within the last year or so that featured a rather long piece on alternative fuel cars.

One of the more interesting interviews was with the engineer that developed the first lithium batteries, while (and still) working for Toyota.

He had taken a 2005 Corolla (sp?) and modified the engine with, what he said was, $50 in parts and allowed a current internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen gas. Suddenly, years of “needed” development to make a viable hydrogen engine are no longer needed.

Will I see a car with this mod rolling down the street in the next 10 years? Doubtful.[/quote]

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the $50 conversion or that the interview even took place, but I can say that Hygrogen engines are not viable for a host of other reasons. Even if you can modify an engine like this, there are a few questions I have for you.

  1. Where would you get your fuel?
  2. How would you store Hygrogen in your vehicle?
  3. Is this modification safe, or just a lab experiment?
  4. In real production applications, and not lab experiments, would this modification cost many times more than $50? I can guarantee that a hydrogen fuel tank alone costs more than $50.
  5. Where is all of this apparently cheap and easy to get to Hydrogen that everyone thinks is sitting around waiting to be consumed?

These are just a few of the hundreds of questions real life engineers would have to answer to make this a viable technology. Real life is a little more complicated than a lab experiment.

#29

[quote]chrisp23 wrote:
Do you have any idea the amount of energy it would take to freeze a working engine to almost absolute zero? This is a rediculous application to even suggest to increase gas mileage. The cost benefit will NEVER work for production cars.[/quote]

The cost for an engine assembly would be $450 to $950 RETAIL according to a company that actually does the process.
http://www.cryopro.com/engine.htm

The process itself is very simple, all it entails is essentially emersing the part into liquid nitrogen for a set amount of time. This is not a process that needs development BTW, it has been used by NASA since the 60’s.

I can tell you one reason car manufacturers wouldn’t do it. It would also greatly increase component longevity and cut into repair and service profits which are a huge part of their bottom line.

If I were rebuilding an engine right now I would definitely spend the extra $$$ to get the components done, just for the longevity factor alone. I have been a mechanical designer for the past 14 years and have seen the benefits firsthand, although I have never given any thought about the increase in fuel economy until recently.

#30

Cryo treatment is a very well known process for people into car tweaking. The most common parts done right now is brake rotors. Anyone that got their rotors done has made them bullet proof. Brake after brake on the track, can’t get those rotors to warp, the calipers will mealt before those rotors will even show a stress fracture.

#31

[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
chrisp23 wrote:
Do you have any idea the amount of energy it would take to freeze a working engine to almost absolute zero? This is a rediculous application to even suggest to increase gas mileage. The cost benefit will NEVER work for production cars.

The cost for an engine assembly would be $450 to $950 RETAIL according to a company that actually does the process.
http://www.cryopro.com/engine.htm

The process itself is very simple, all it entails is essentially emersing the part into liquid nitrogen for a set amount of time. This is not a process that needs development BTW, it has been used by NASA since the 60’s.

I can tell you one reason car manufacturers wouldn’t do it. It would also greatly increase component longevity and cut into repair and service profits which are a huge part of their bottom line.

If I were rebuilding an engine right now I would definitely spend the extra $$$ to get the components done, just for the longevity factor alone. I have been a mechanical designer for the past 14 years and have seen the benefits firsthand, although I have never given any thought about the increase in fuel economy until recently.[/quote]

My bad. I thought you were suggesting a cooling process for the engine while it is running. Engines run extremely well with cold air.

#32

I believe this shit. Several years ago I became aware of a company by the name of Powerball international. They were developing technology to harness the the power of hydrogen in a safe easily transportable form, their answer was powerballs. Needless to say the technology was intriguing from a investment stand point. I lost track of the company for a few years and tried to find out about the companies progress and new developments.

What I found out was that the company was purchased by an oil company, its web site was removed, I
cant find any new information on the technology, and well probably never see this extremely promising technology ever come to fruition. Further evidence that oil companies rule the world and continue to fuck people up the ass with a giant rubber dildo on a daily basis.

#33

[quote]buffballswell wrote:
I believe this shit. Several years ago I became aware of a company by the name of Powerball international. They were developing technology to harness the the power of hydrogen in a safe easily transportable form, their answer was powerballs. Needless to say the technology was intriguing from a investment stand point. I lost track of the company for a few years and tried to find out about the companies progress and new developments.

What I found out was that the company was purchased by an oil company, its web site was removed, I
cant find any new information on the technology, and well probably never see this extremely promising technology ever come to fruition. Further evidence that oil companies rule the world and continue to fuck people up the ass with a giant rubber dildo on a daily basis.[/quote]

Who forced them to sell? Oil company made an offer, Powerball International sold. There is nothing conspiratorial about that…its called business.

#34

Here’s my solution:

and another where the inventor claims he never actually made diesel out of dead cats:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/14/germany.catfuel.reut/

That’s right, dead cats folks.

We’d get the two fold advantage of cheap diesel fuel as well as killing cats.

Like scoring with two chicks at the same time…