io9: fuel

Sweden's Homes Heated with the Power of Bunny Blood

Lauren Davis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:30:00 PDT

We've seen lamps that run on human blood and examined robots that eat corpses for fuel. Sweden is already using flesh-based biofuel, but it's not humans they're using to heat their homes; it's rabbits.

Why rabbits? The fuzzy critters have actually become a bit of a pest in Sweden; wild and stray pet rabbits alike have ravaged city parks in Stockholm, forcing hunters to think out the population. With all those bunny bodies piling up, it makes sense to put them to good use. So the bodies are shipped to Konvex, a company that turns animal and vegetable oils into automotive and heating oils. But even the reproductively prolific rabbits don't provide sufficient power, so Stockholm supplements their bunny-based power with other animal corpses, including cats and horses.

So does this mean human-derived fuels are next? As Scientific American notes, the jokes have been made. A group of activists called the Yes Men crashed a gas and oil industry luncheon, claiming to be representatives from Exxon Mobile. They then proceeded to deliver a presentation for a mock product called "Vivoleum," a fuel made from human bodies. The audience was reportedly less than amused.

Burning bunnies for biofuel? [Scientific American]

Fuel-Hungry Pirates Steal Used Cooking Oil to Run Their Cars

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:00:00 PDT

Restaurants across the United States are reporting that thieves are stealing their used cooking oil, turning it into black-market biodiesel made in garage distilleries. In many cities where biodiesel fuel is popular, restaurants can earn up to $1.25 per gallon of the used stuff. Oil pirates, however, are rarely looking to make a buck. They are just whipping up biodiesel for their own uses, cutting out middlemen who go through a complicated certification process with the Environmental Protection Agency in order to distill the fuel from oil.

The Associated Press reports:

Grease is transformed into fuel through a chemical process called transesterification, which removes glycerine and adds methanol to the oil, leaving a thinner product that can power a diesel engine. Biodiesel can also be blended with petroleum diesel, and blends of the alternative fuel are now sold at 1,400 gas stations across the country. But as the price of diesel shoots up, so, too, does the value of grease.

That's where the pirates come in. Especially in areas where a lot of people are driving biodiesel cars, it can be much cheaper to brew your own fuel from stolen cooking oil than to buy it from legitimate sources. I can't wait to hear people offering me biofuel under their breaths, along with kind buds, when I walk down the street in San Francisco. Image via AP.

Biodiesel Pirates Steal Used Cooking Oil [MSNBC]

Planet-Mining And Giant Parasites In "Dead Space"

Kevin Kelly — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:00:31 PST

Dead Space, a new game from Electronic Arts, brings parasitic "we want to kill you, kill you, kill you" aliens back into fashion just in time for next Halloween. In the far future, humans have depleted all of the natural resources on Earth, so private corporations begin sending out enormous ships called "Planetcrackers" that carve off enormous chunks of planets, and then mine them down to their bare essentials. Of course, as often happens in these games, this pisses off an "ancient and malevolent force" who decides to start unleashing hell. In space.

You play through the game as weaponless systems engineer Isaac Clarke aboard the USG Ishimura, and not only to you have to survive the onslaught of demon hordes out in space, but you also have to seal up their doorway so they can't get back out. All in a day's work. It seems like spacefaring folks don't ever have things go that well. Just ask anyone in the Doom universe. However, we sure wouldn't mind having a Planetcracker to fly around.

A Zero-Emissions Car That Runs on Fossil Fuel

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:40:57 PST

In the next year, students at Georgia Tech will be driving cars that run on fossil fuels but don't release tons of carbon into the environment. It's all part of the university's long-term plan to develop vehicles that produce recyclable carbon. Eventually they hope to eliminate fossil fuel from the equation, but in the meantime they are working with an engine that traps carbon emissions for dumping off and recycling at fuel stations. Let's hope they model it on this Swiss zero-emissions car called SAM, which looked cool but was discontinued due to lack of funds.

How does the carbon-collecting strategy work? A release from Georgia Tech says:

Georgia Tech's near-future strategy involves capturing carbon emissions from conventional (fossil) liquid hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles with an onboard fuel processor designed to separate the hydrogen in the fuel from the carbon. Hydrogen is then used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed at a refueling station. It is then transported to a centralized site to be sequestered in a permanent location currently under investigation by scientists, such as geological formations, under the oceans or in solid carbonate form. In the long-term strategy, the carbon dioxide will be recycled forming a closed-loop system, involving synthesis of high energy density liquid fuel suitable for the transportation sector.

Sign me up!

Carbon-capture strategy could lead to emission-free cars [Georgia Tech]

What To Put Into Your Spaceship's Gas Tank

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:40:00 PST

Since most science fiction vehicles don't run on unleaded gasoline, would you even know what to fill the tank with if you were lucky enough to get behind the wheel? With everything out there from warp cores to specialized space fuel, here's a handy list that lets you know what powers some of the more popular vehicles around the galaxy, just in case you find yourself stranded and need to call AAA.

Any vehicle from the Star Trek Universe: Dilithium Crystals. This is an element created just for Star Trek that powers everything from the U.S.S. Enterprise to a Klingon Bird of Prey. Dilithium had to be mined, just like we have to drill for oil, and could be hard to come by. Of course, when Star Trek: The Next Generation came out the writers decided to just cheat and make it something that they could make synthetically, thereby killing any future "we're out of gas!" storylines.
The Time-Traveling Delorean from Back to the Future: plutonium, gas, and/or garbage. Doc Brown's time-tripping Delorean actually has an engine that does run on gas, although when he came back from the future he'd converted the flux capacitor to run on a Mr. Fusion device, thereby eliminating the need for plutonium pellets for driving through the decades. Just toss some trash inside, and you're good to go.
Anything in the Battlestar Galactica universe: Tylium. In the world of BSG, both Cylon and Human ships run off of a fictional ore called tylium. It's only found on certain planets, and has to be mined, just like dilithium crystals. But unlike the crystals, it also has to be refined and turned into a gasoline like substance. No idea what kind of mileage you get out of it, but it also powers their "faster than light" drives, so it must pack quite a punch.
The TARDIS from Doctor Who: artificial black holes, radiation, life force... take your pick. The TARDIS in the world of Doctor Who looks like a giant blue phonebooth, and travels through both time and space. However it's actually a sentient being that draws its power from one of several different sources, depending on what season of the show you're watching. In the current incarnation of the show, the Doctor has to stop periodically near a space-time rift and suck up the leaking radiation in order to keep things going. A sort of interstellar pit stop, if you will. Photo by lizardian.
The Spaceship Heart of Gold from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: a cup of hot tea. The Heart of Gold ran on an infinite improbability drive that took it through "every point in the universe at once" when it was switched on. Not too shabby. All it took was an electronic brain and a good Brownian motion generator, like a cup of tea, and you're off. Probably the cheapest form of travel ever invented.
Anything in Star Wars: your guess is as good as ours. While you sometimes see strange hoses and gizmos hooked to the ships before they launch, it was never made clear in these movies what they run on. George Lucas apparently never wanted us to get bored by the details, so you could fill in the blanks on your own for this one. Lando was running a gas-mining facility on Bespin in The Empire Strikes back, so maybe he was in the spaceship fuel business. We may never know, so be careful with whatever you put in the tank of your X-Wing.
As always, extinguish all smoking materials while refueling and be sure to hold on to your receipts. Your own mileage may vary.