What is Digg?85 Comments
- acid0426, on 10/10/2007, -6/+42Why Did You Capitalize Every Word? Ever Heard Of Punctuation?
- mapez, on 10/10/2007, -2/+17simply genius..
- craftyguy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12"Our three minds hold the three keys and we can only unlock it together,"
Sounds more like Capt. Planet to me. - cagedog, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11yes, they would be reusable after being emptied. says so in TFA.
- unlimitedorb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9That would be great if people could eventually get paid for using this device making it sort of like a refund on gas money. I'd do it.
- mace2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9"Our three minds hold the three keys and we can only unlock it together," said Houston.
......GO PLANET! - hackerbeotch, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7If the have spent this much time and money on the project I'm pretty sure they could come up with a method of mounting it that doesn't involve climbing under a car with a screw driver.
- kahlessreborn, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8....can build one small enough to replace a car exhaust that will last for a full tank of petrol.
So basically you need to go under your car and change this every time you fill it up which could be once a week or more.
This seems very impractical. - Twenty, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I believe 'pooned' is the welsh pronunciation.
- Dimascus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I am guessing the heat would cook it, makeing some sort of soup instead ;)
- Twenty, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5"Our three minds hold the three keys and we can only unlock it together," said Houston.
Unnecessarily corny. But I totally digg it. - broon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I dont see any reason why the exhaust couldnt be run from the engine to the boot or similar, and have the box there. No need to crawl under the car.
- zenlunatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4So does this work on cows yet?
- dbug, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4They have to "hide" their secret invention even from their wives? Don't they have patent offices in Wales?
- qwertydvorak, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4i said this a few days ago when this was font paged. the smart move would be to mount one permanent box that would have a nozzle where the gas goes in the car. retrofit the gas station so the nozzles have collectors on them also. while you fill the fuel, at the same time it is collectiing the CO2.
- mroarsome, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Yep, I was really excited reading this article until I read that line. No one would bother to do that, I say just improve on catalytic converters - they are good for 100,000 kms. I hope this "Green Box" is biodegradable.
@broon
I don't like the thought of a hot exhaust pipe in my boot. This needs to be able to bolt on to a traditional car design without modification to be successful. - brdsofprey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Or just pump the contents of the box out as you pump gas in. That way a tanker truck can bring all the collected gasses to one of the 10 facilities that process it. You would save on having to produce dozes of boxes for every car.
- tomrlutong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2This is really kind of useless. The climate doesn't care if the algae pull their CO2 from car exhaust or just from the air around them. Either way, they remove the same amount of CO2 from the air, and the climate effect is the same. All this does is waste energy hauling the cannister around and give the car owner the chance to make an empty green fashon statement.
- armnpsycho, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2MIT guys (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.html) have already described this whole process with coal plants. Wouldn't it be much wiser to capture it from such a larger source as that first? Just think how much extra bio-diesel we would get from a coal plant. I think this idea is great but we should focus on the large polluters first.
- Xandyr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2These Welsh researchers have made completely fraudulent claims! Each gasoline molecule is a long carbon chain, and is well over 90% carbon by weight (2 hydrogens attached to a typical carbon). A 12 gallon tank of gas is almost all carbon, and all of it goes into the atmosphere. To capture 80% of this carbon emissions, the capture container would need to increase by greater than the mass of 10 gallons of gasoline in a very short period of time. Their claim that they can make this device smaller is even more ridiculous. Every cubic centimeter of gasoline gas occupies of volume of well over 22.4 liters if vaporized (since it is heated), and well over that volume if it is broken down into C02 molecules. 1 gallon of gas is around 3800 cc's, so over 7600 cc's are burned in an hour of driving. No known organism can convert tens of liters of gas into biomass in seconds. They haven't applied for a patent because they won't get one unless they radically adjust their claims of how much carbon is captured ( a tiny fraction of a percent of that which escapes). To capture gallons of carbon per tank would require burying gallons of carbon sludge at every gas station stop. There is no quick and easy fix to the carbon pollution problem. We need to spend the next few centuries regrowing rainforests and work on sequestering (burying) the reset of the carbon by other means.
- goodoldharris, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2How is punctuation relevant? I think you mean capitalization. Or more accurately, the appropriate use of capitalization.
["Punctuation marks are written symbols that do not correspond to either phonemes (sounds) of a spoken language nor to lexemes (words and phrases) of a written language, but which serve to organize or clarify written language."] - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I am sure that once the technology does take off, they will be able to make replacing of the green box as easy as filling up the tank
- manicleek, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Except it doesn't ssay anything about Lithium Hydroxide though does it. Dick
- ffleming, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I wonder if it's real or Steorn 2.0
- brdsofprey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2What about the other gasses and particulates that are in Exhaust? I for one think that CO2 gets too much attention when compared to the other stuff. Carbon monoxide isn't good for you. Is there a biologist here that can explain what the algae would do with CO? What about Heavy metals in the exhaust? They are toxic to the organisms I'm aware of. They are all pollutants and I just wonder if this is putting a bandaid on our "CO2 problem" only to have another problem pop up regarding other pollutants.
- nucleartool, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I think its a great idea. If they could find a way to make it 'lock and load' when changing the cartridge thing it would brill. Just keep have a little handle sticking out under the car or whatever, it sounds like all you have to do is divert the exhaust fumes so it coud be put anywhere where heat wouldnt be a problem. Only thing is that if it costs the driver money to get a new cartridge and there is no free exchange thing then it will bomb. It really has to be simple, cheap/free and standard on new cars for it too succeed. I think it needs major car manufacturers and petrol companies to push this kinda thing.
- BESTenemy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And the funny thing is that we keep portraying CO2 as a harmful gas, that in reality, combined with high temperatures contributes greatly to development of plant life and everything that feeds on it. Heat and CO2 are the metabolism components of this planet. Instead of letting plants capture the photosynthesis elements from the atmosphere, we're now going to be packaging and delivering the molecules in solid containers.
People are terrified of a green house effect. Do they know what a "green house" is? More specifically, do they know why we build green houses? To grow plants! Why don't we outlaw trees and grass while we're at it. - Cyberen, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Isn't there some billionaire who offered an enormous cash prize to the person who could figure out a way to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere by a billion tons a day or something? I think that guy should meet with these three.
Sad how greenhouse gases have reached critical levels thanks to the greedy short-sighted people and it takes humanitarian geniuses to save their undeserving hides and all of us. Oh well, if not them, then who would? - Mfok, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Didn't the electric car get trashed because it wasn't good for the oil business? If they're NOT recyclable, that just means more monies!
- Dimascus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1For some reason, a "green beef box" probably would not sell. Moooo!
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Second time for this little "investment" scam. Digg needs a big "gullible" sign.
- swanny89, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Why not just put a bunch of algae in line with the exhaust to process the CO2?
- LogicBomB, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And by 3 fishing buddies they REALLY mean 3 scientists with expertise in chemistry who happen to like fishing.
God I hate media headlines. Great article but the headline just makes my blood boil. - mightyslick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Read about the algae filters a while back. and also this not too long ago
http://www.gizmag.com/go/6528/ - theholycow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1They haven't solved any problem. Their device is a solution in search of a problem.
The device captures CO2 and N2O for feeding to algae which are to be grown on thousands of acres of algae farms to be used for making biodiesel (according to this article, 1000 acres for Britain's biodiesel alone). Algae for biodiesel can currently be grown on raw sewage, and in the process it treats that sewage into useful water. I think that's a much better idea than using bunches of energy and creating waste to capture stuff that's already going to be pulled out of the air by growing the algae for the fuel anyway. - itspuddingtime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1so if it's so easy why haven't you made one yet?
- mahdaeng, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"If the system takes off, drivers with a Greenbox would replace it when they fill up their cars and it would go to a bioreactor to be emptied."
Sounds practical enough...Just slide under your car every time you stop for gas and change that puppy out. - raober, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Well...if this really *were* to take off, I could see a small modification at gas stations...have a sort of trench like at many oil-change places, and have someone in there to switch these filters out while you fill up. Could work in theory.
- ccrook, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1So how much energy will it take to produce these? Something tells me a significant amount of green house gases will be produced in their manufacture.
I'll be dugg down because I'm asking real questions rather than basking in eco-paradise. - mccake, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This 'Green Box' basically implies that we need better cars!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Dude, you should join them and become the Fantastic Four.
- fragsta, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I almost posted this Reuters link until I saw this a few days ago: http://digg.com/environment/Greenbox_device_captures_car_s_carbon_dioxide_to_make_biodiesel
Get with the times, yo. - EdLesMann, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Its called Duct Tape.
j/k
Seriously though, many racing teams have parts that are snap in place or held with a buckling system for quick and easy removal. I doubt many people put the same amount of stress on their cars that racers do. Or even better, why couldn't they have a second hatch (first for the gas) that a filter is slid in and out of and is "locked in" similar to the gas lid? Right now the filters are quite large, but the article said they could make it much smaller so its feasible. - freddagg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1The real question is how much energy it takes to produce and recycle the materials used to capture the exhaust, grow the algae, and reprocess algae into biodiesel. This may create more CO2 in energy inputs than it saves.
- snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"The carbon dioxide, held in its safe, inert state..." Wuh? CO2 in what state?. dry ice?? Sounds more like junk science or bad reporting.
- brdsofprey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Why not have the container fixed and pump out the gasses while you pump in Gas? As they say in the article they only need 10 facilities in all of the UK. They could have tanker trucks pick up the gas that's stored in large tanks, just like gas is stored. It wouldn't take any more time and you don't have to do any major extra steps. Maybe an extra nozzle for the gas?
- itspuddingtime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1no way I would run the exhaust through the trunk of my car. The potential for leaks and CO poisoning is too great
- floejoe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Dupe, Professor Balthazar already came up with this invention in one of his classic 60's cartoons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Balthazar - happytron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I call shenanigans until I see one actually working at the scale of a car. As it's already been argued, gasoline is a fairly compact way of storing all that carbon. After combustion, the mass of the fuel has tripled, so the greenbox would probably have to be substantially larger than the fuel tank. Also, where does the energy to feed the algae come from? Solar? If it were somehow economical to turn spare CO2 into fuel, wouldn't we have already solved the problem of global warming?
- SeniorZo, on 10/10/2007, -6/+7Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me!
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