What is Digg?47 Comments
- SteaminTmann, on 04/28/2008, -0/+13I think I saw this in a movie... I believe its called "Mr. Fusion"
- lava, on 04/28/2008, -0/+9I thought it said thoroughbred germans. I though, "oh man, trouble!"
- ThatGeek, on 04/28/2008, -1/+10Nope, the time machine still ran on gas. Mr. Fusion just ran the time circuits.
maybe i know too much about back to the future - markloveshawaii, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5I'd like some of these in my gas tank so I can just poop in it and drive away.
- dmcsier, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5You are correct sir. Mr. Fusion replaced the fusion needed by the plutonium. The car had Mr. Fusion when it was in the old west, but was out of gas (from a native american's arrrow) and required the train to bring it up to speed.
Yeah, me too. - hayzeus, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3All hail: Mutant 59!
- dagamer34, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3As if we didn't have a food problem already. What we need to do is make fuel from fat so that fat people can be seen as huge energy stores that we can suck up from!
- AllYourBase3, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2This is heavy
- Isohunt, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2I read about this a while back go to there actual site and click on the flash, It gives you a plain English explination.
http://www.coskata.com/ - ThatGeek, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2and they fired the train with 3 different colored logs. Plus, marty wasnt thinking 4th dimensionally when he thought about the bridge. And the doc doesnt go with him.
maybe i need to go outside - davidryal, on 04/28/2008, -1/+3this has been on digg so many times over the last month
- TheMachine1, on 04/28/2008, -1/+2Sounds odd to use bacteria to convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen to ethanol(not 100% yields), distill it and dry it when one could merely pass carbon monoxide and hydrogen over a catalyst and get dry methanol(near 100%). But I guess since methanols proven technology we could have replaced the entire gasoline supply with in the early 1970's it would never be allowed today by big oil.
- diggafrica, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1good to see the sucker germs finally have a good use
- Crossmenjeff, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1progress is progress, and i can't help but remember that we found not too long ago bacteria that can actually help decompose plastics and turn them into something useful.
- kylere, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1It is all fun and games until the bacteria mutates and develops a taste for silicon or petroleum.
- Tearlock, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1This is an important development. Unfortunately it will take decades to build enough facilities to meet the demands of consumption.
- stabbingkittens, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Problem: Ethanol competes with food production
Solution: Mutant bacteria
Result: Ethanol dependant on food production - inactive, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1They were able to predict this stuff back when BTTF was being made?
- Barbarino, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Saw this in Motor Trend a few months out, they are partnering with GM.
- inactive, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1They'd just get smacked back down again like every other time.
- FaithclubDotNet, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1I wonder what is the most efficient plant to grow in order to maximize energy. I bet is dependent on the area you live in.
- inactive, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1They have been making oil for a few years now from many of these same sources. Slaughterhouse remains work best, why the butterball turkey company (con-agra) signed a deal for this. The innovations make it profitable at $25/barrel, they are raking it in now. Before these new innovations it was known just not cost effective, people have been making oil in just a few hours for over 30 years.
Oil is renewable, although many push the agenda item that it is not, and refuse to even research this (now) somewhat dated technology. At least its starting to be used by more places (italy has one, the test plant was philly but a live plant was built in Kansas, and oddly it costs only $20M to make a plant, cheaper than most oil platforms). - monsterette, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1...conversion of any waste to fuel..wow!
- linagee, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Locked to an oil consuming future by hollywood!
- blacktriangle, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Mr. Fusion?
- brstilson, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Yep it's called thermal depolymerization. It makes so much freaking sense. It fixes two problems, even (oil and landfill shortages). You'd think the media would pay some attention to it, but no, they're too busy praising ethanol, a process that actually CAUSES two problems (costs more energy than it produces and is causing food prices to skyrocket) and fixes nothing.
- StingingNettle, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1If this works, it could actaully make garbage have value.
- Cyberen, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1We need some giant dump somewhere that's basically a giant pool full of this bacteria and it eats garbage morning, noon and night. Although, what about that plasma ionization machine that ate garbage and exported energy?
- Mootabolife, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1True.. marty could have just gone back again and saved doc a second time, maybe this time bringing an extra gas can. Also.. falling into the cliff would have sent him over 88mph just in case he wasn't all the way there to begin with. Oh, and those are my favorite childhood movies.. are they in HD yet?
- Phillycat81, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1If this works, we can all go out and buy hummers!!!
- copypastry, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1So now when a group of rowdy pranksters pisses in/sugars your gas tank, you can thank them for the fill-up instead of shaking your fist in impotent rage!
- qwertydvorak, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn't. Viagra wasn't hyped about for 1000 years, it came out and caught the market. There didn't need millions of spam mails promoting a "1arger kok." When something comes out at $1 a gallon, it will sell, no hype involved. Just produce something i can cheaply put in my boat, mower, rail buggy, or car and i will buy it.
- roho76, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1We should concentrate strictly on solar and harnessing the suns rays. Anything with a byproduct is bad news. Just because it doesn't use oil doesn't mean it's good. We have reached a point to where if we wanted we could make little to no impact on the environment (not including food supply) if we wanted to. It is just sad that so many bullheaded people choose to fight it when it would be just as easy to go with it.
- copypastry, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1You'd think that if the doc was so damn smart he'd have converted the whole car to mr. fission instead of just the flux capacitor.
- inactive, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0I remember that in some tv series and these people had peanut oil which was worth more than gold. The microbes are according to the article patented but not modified - ie someone got a patent on something that is natural!
- j3ff86, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0Mr. Fusion powers the time circuits and the flux capacitor. But the internal combustion engine runs on ordinary gasoline.. it always has!
- kb9rlf, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0The real problem is there are to many spawning alternatives right now.
Ethanol, Hydrogen, Electric, etc. And everyone has their own idea about which one is better.
Here is a thought:
Lets get behind the one that uses as much as what is already here (infrastructure wise). We already have gas stations that can pump liquid. Lets not try and reinvent the wheel here. H2 is out, we do not have the nessessary equipment to get h2 into our cars.
Ethanal:
Liquid @ room temp/pres ... Good.
Stable >= Gas: ... Good.
Trash to cash:... Great.
This is one I can stand behind.
Getting Ethanol from waste products, instead of food sounds like winner to me :) - Doomxeen, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0I just think it's sad that just about every day I read about another breakthrough in creating energy. Yet our dear friends in the petroleum industry are willing to milk it for every last penny, even if it leads to a massive energy crisis that could have been so easily averted.
- samuella, on 09/08/2008, -0/+0Hey may be we'll have mutants? Stop experiments!
http://sooslic.com/?id=674
http://www.hpair.org/about/advisors.aspx
http://www.dvci.org/programs.htm
http://www.mitip2007.org/
http://search.ashtech.info/sciences - docbob84, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0It's only dependent on food production in the sense that food byproducts (corn stalks, the parts of food plants we don't eat) are the cheapest "fodder" for the bugs. Even then, if they aren't present I don't see a critical shortage of grass clippings or old tires happening any time soon. If anything, I would think this would *increase* food production by a) decreasing the amount of corn used for ethanol, and b) giving farmers cheaper fuel for their machinery so they can afford to grow and harvest more.
- johnvid, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0Someone I have been working for in the Uk is doing a similar thing.
http://www.organic-power.co.uk/what_is_anaerobic_d ...
They are advocating that all other forms of converting Crops ie Rape Seed etc. Is waste of time, and a huge concpiracy, when the food we waste, can more easily be converted to the gas we need.
But something tells me the people in charge aint going to do the right thing anytime soon. - malex, on 04/28/2008, -1/+1Nah. Once we're no longer basing our foreign policy on securing oil resources, we'll have a lot fewer enemies available.
- docbob84, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0Technically I think it could. If it can convert wood chips, I'd imagine it can convert people sent through a woodchipper... makes you think twice about saying something insulting to the next microbiologist you meet.
- j3ff86, on 04/28/2008, -1/+1I, for one, welcome our new bioreactor and anaerobic microbe overlords.
- Danby123, on 04/28/2008, -3/+2now only if that germ could turn enemies into ethanol...
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