This week's Animal Oddity is about a potential new form of biofuel that could one day become a renewable supplement to fossil fuels: alligator fat.
Before we get to the alligators, here's a little background on the search for alternative energy. We know that burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) is not sustainable, resulting in health-compromising pollution and greenhouse gas-induced climate change, not to mention our dependence on foreign countries for our supply and the limited quantities of accessible fossil fuels available for our use that are left on the planet. So it's no surprise that the search for alternative energy sources is on.
Solar and wind power are two renewable energy technologies that are currently being used (and should be expanded) that most people already know about. Biofuels are increasingly becoming the focus of researchers looking for the energy source of the future.
Biofuels are fuels created from living things and can be more sustainable and renewable than fossil fuels. Corn-based fuels like ethanol are already widely used, as well as "biodiesel" created from soybean oil, including recycled oil that was first used for frying food. Switchgrass has also proven to be a promising potential sources of biodiesel (but not perfect).
New research has uncovered a rather odd form of biodiesel: alligator fat. Researchers have reported in the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research that alligator fat can be converted into a high quality biodiesel. But what would prompt them to pick such an unlikely material for their research? Believe it or not, there's a lot of alligator fat out there that is currently going to waste.
Alligators are native to the American South from Florida west to Texas and in coastal areas as far north as the Carolinas. Unsustainable hunting and habitat destruction brought this large American crocodilian to the brink of extinction by the middle of the last century. Fortunately, through good conservation practices and strong laws such as the Endangered Species Act, alligators were protected and have made a recovery that's nothing short of amazing. Alligators were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1987 and today their populations remain healthy, making them an endangered species success story.
Unlike many other wildlife species that are (or were) on the brink of extinction, alligators readily breed in captivity. Today, alligators are raised for their skins and meat in captive breeding facilities called alligator farms. An estimated 15 millions pounds of alligator fat is annually thrown away as a byproduct of these farm operations. With that much wasted raw material, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to figure out a use for it.
Whether or not alligator fat becomes a fuel source of the future remains to be seen. While 15 million pounds of fat is a lot, it could only supply a tiny percentage of the fuel Americans consume. There are also animal welfare questions and the potential pollution caused by large alligator farm operations. But if nothing else, this discovery shows that sometimes you have to look in odd places to make new scientific discoveries.
In the meantime, check out this video about an alligator's ability to use its lungs to stealthily move underwater and stalk its prey.
You can symbolically adopt an American alligator with the National Wildlife Federation. Get the latest odd animal news, stories, videos and behaviors on my Animal Planet blog, Animal Oddities.
Photo by wwarby via Flickr Creative Commons.
Follow David Mizejewski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dmizejewski
Hemp 6X more BTUS than Corn
Hemp uses less water no herbicides and little pesticides and fertilizer.
Subbituminous coal is common in the US. It has an energy content of about 18 million Btu per ton, and is used mostly in coal-fired power plants
Coal generates about half of the electricity used in the United States. ... Each person in the United States uses 3.8 tons of coal each year.
Some 965 million tons of coal were consumed for the generation of electricity. This amounted to 86% of total U.S. coal production
U.S. soybeans 76.6 million acres
U.S. corn 90 million acres
Half of the acres 83.3 million acres
Hemp yields an average of nine dry tons per acre
(more in southern areas)
749 million tons hemp fiber
Bio-diesel Hempoline can be made from leaves and stalks.
You would also have the hemp seeds as a food source too.
U.S. annual anhydrous ammonia 22.90 million tons used.
U.S. ROUND-UP use100 million pounds
Contaminated with 1,4 dioxane
HERO-INSECTIDE SYNGENTA INSECTICIDE Soybeans and corn
Libya NATO The Road to Endless War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCgcbB29bmw
I'm not sure I like this cause and effect.
Once oil production begins to decline (and please - I know we have half of the reserve left - the crappy and more costly to produce half) we are in for the mother of all lifestyle adjustments. And how long would alligators last if we did exploit them for fuel?
This is listed under HuffPost Green - but where is the information?
You briefly mention biofuels like corn and soybeans, without acknowledging the true costs of conversion. In fact, more oil is used to break the corn down, than you would actually save once the ethanol is produced. And if you look at the skyrocketing prices for food stuffs, and the starving planet, this too is unsustainable. You have to include total costs, which include growing, harvesting, extracting and converting the food into fuel to get an accurate idea of the true costs involved. Just like how the price of gasoline doesn't include the amount of money we spend on the military protecting oil fields overseas. If we did, the price of gas would be between $8 and $10 a gallon -- which is a far better incentive to cut our use of fossil fuels. Not some fairy tale, about how alligator fat will solve our dependency on oil based fossil fuels.