11 Strange Clean Energy Sources: Watermelon, Dead Turkeys, Urine And More!

EarthFirst:

Why stick with boring old oil when you could be powering your home, car and gadgets with slaughterhouse waste, garbage and onions? As strange as transforming these substances into renewable fuels might seem, many of them are viable energy sources and some are already in use around the world.

Read the whole story: EarthFirst

Comments

[moonflowerjewelry]

not going to happen. do you really think that anything that makes the planet a better place is good for corporate profits? think about the Tucker.

[simplify]

So you think the first automobile that came off the factory floor looks anything like the cars of today or was as efficient.­...

[leduck]

oh yeah
i'm quite sure we can mathmetically run thr world on watermelon, dead turkeys and urin

is this for real???

[research]

Yes, think about it for a second:

We certainly can provide all the world fuels needs if we used all the land for fuel.

But we need that land for food, clothing and shelter.

But, once we are done with those things, we can THEN convert them into fuels.

Thus the entire worlds land is eventually used to fuel.

This can provide all the fuels we will ever need.
In total, the upper limit of the bio-energy potential could be over 1000 EJ per year. This is considerably more than the current global energy use of 400 EJ.
http://www.uce-uu.nl/index.php?action=1&menuId=1&type=project&id=3&
Note this article assumes growing crops for food, That's NOT what I'm Talking about, but it has the world wide potential energy numbers. Since the crops for human use will not be optimized for energy, we will take the low values of crop energy and BioChar yields.
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/company list of BioChar companies.
http://www.agri-therm.com/solution.html portable bio fuel oil BioChar units.
http://www.advbiorefineryinc.ca/news/ meat rending waste BioChar.
http://terrapretapot.org/

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile

[BannedNBoston]

Urine should be combined with the compost pile its a natural source of nitrogen.

An even stranger source of energy HEMP!!
6X more btus than corn
8X more biodiesel than canola
no-til farming
Strongest root structure known
6X more fiber than cotton.

[research]

Except for the Tornado idea, these are all good ideas.

Recycle our wastes! Close the loop.

BioChar of organic wastes can supply all the fuels we need, cleanly and forever.

Add rooftop Solar electric and we have all the energy and fuels we need world wide, cleaner than dumping our waste, carbon negative, and forever. And most of our "waste" problems go away.

See my profile for complete links and details.

[LOCUTUS13]

As I have said on other posts, that until the human population decreases all these ideas are moot. Everything you do to reduce our footprint on the planet will be undone by the increase in population.

We have meet the enemy and he is us

[moonflowerjewelry]

strangely enough, i can't argue with you...

[Whitley2009]

This is great. We all can p*iss on OPEC.

[jsarets]

Any organic matter can be used as feedstock to produce liquid oils or alcohols. Our landfills are essentially oil fields.

[Gasparilla]

Some are already gas fields.

[Chipher]

The dead turkeys biofuel is a scam. "No, really. It works in the same way that any fossil fuel is created, through pressure and heat, only at a faster pace." Yeah, right. The AgriTitans like Tyson have a problem. Their mountain of offal, stinking to high heaven, and it's illegal to incinerate because of Clean Air reg's.

To the rescue! "Thermal decomposition", yeah, that would be INCINERATION!! So they condense out the greasy smoke, call it 'biofuel', and suddenly its a tax credit windfall for green energy grantsl!! Whoo-hoo!
Tyson gets their offal problem taken care of, makes tax profits, you get zip on 'public option' healthcare.

Come on! Wake up!! Our government has been taken over by multinational corporations!! There is zero oversight on these Green technology and Defense technology scams. CUT THEIR GRANT FUNDING!!
We need a public option, there are 35,000,000 Americans out of work and 12,000,000 are homeless!!!

[jsarets]

Yes, the carbon content of the biomass feedstock does ultimately find its way into the atmosphere either way, but if we produce fuel as an intermediary, we can get useful work out of it instead of just dumping heat into the atmosphere.

The other way to recycle biomass is as fertilizer. But the consumption of the resulting food output by humans and livestock causes carbon emissions just as the consumption of the fuel output by vehicles and equipment.

There must be some way of getting businesses to recycle their waste biomass. Maybe there's a better way than these grants. Maybe bacterial digestion is more efficient than thermal gasification. But there's no categorically superior way to recycle waste biomass than to produce fuel.

I suggest you avoid channeling your frustration about healthcare reform into misinformed hysteria about entirely different issues.

[EgyptianMysterySchool]

Any attempts to use food as fuel is an inexplicably stupid idea. What they are calling waste (like the cull watermelons are actually nutrients for the next generation of food. In the last 100 years America has gone lost about 1/2 of its topsoil. In a natural system things grow, drop seeds, die and decompose, then the dropped sees begin growing - so the topsoil is constant replaced by the decomposition of the previous years' dead plants.

In our current system, much of the plant is taken away from the area and therefore doesn't replenish the soil - take even more away for the sake of fuel and you compound the food shortage problems that already exist. Of course the obvious violation of using food for fuel goes w/ out saying.

[jsarets]

Your description of permaculture is right on point, but your conclusion is misguided.

Food IS fuel, converted by humans and other animals into CO2 and energy in the presence of oxygen, just like combustion engines.

When we exhaust or stop depleting prehistoric biomass deposits, our energy supply will be predominantly limited to the current rate of biomass production, and we'll need to be able to allocate that supply among both food AND fuel, plus a chop-and-drop reserve for soil upkeep.

Any attempts at absolutism in energy policy is an inexplicably stupid idea. Food is fuel, mass is energy, plants are solar panels, and if we're smart, sustainable agriculture can both feed and fuel humanity. However, as you point out, modern agribusiness is by no means smart or sustainable.

[Whitley2009]

One intermediate solution is to plant our Interstate Highways and electric grid lands with biomass that produces ethanol and biodiesel. This will not interfere with our food producing lands, and it will give us a new industry and new jobs. And, such a planting and harvesting will be on a local basis thereby saving transportation costs and employing local people.

See the following link: http://www.squidoo.com/whitleyhodges7

[drkazmd65]

Cool idea Whitley - thanks for the link.

[simplify]

Im sure the Wright brothers heard that same comment

[drkazmd65]

I particularly liked the 'tornado' idea,... although I can think of at least 2 lead-ins for a "B" disaster movie with that idea as its basis.

Thinking outside of the box is great fun, and occasionally leads to significant developments.

[MagicalPossibilities]

These are all excellent ideas. If each of them were implemented on a small scale, together they could make a big difference. I've often wondered why we aren't exploring the huge potential for methane gas as fuel from landfills as well as human and animal waste. There is a big landfill to the east of where I live. They have an "eternal flame" or sorts which constantly burns off the methane buildup. Why not pipe it to a storage tank instead? I'm no engineer but I think it shouldn't be rocket science.