Another Fuel-Efficiency Dream Dashed

While it sounds like it works on similar principles to any number of miraculous devices from millionaire playboy inventor Anthony Stark--it allegedly shoots "holographic frequencies into the gas tank and changes the molecular structure of the gasoline"--old-fashioned fuddy-duddys are saying, according to this report from the Denver Post's site, that the marketers of a new "SmogBuster Fuel Disk" that allegedly improves gas mileage and helps clean the air must be huffing gas:

"It doesn't work," says Dr. Terry Parker, a physics professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Parker and graduate student John Dane of the chemistry department tested the device…."It's clear that it's just a sticker and nothing else," Dane said.

Back to my so-far fruitless search for the guy who invented a car that runs on water, but alas has been intimidated by ExxonMobil thugs into hiding.

Comments

[Franklin Harris]

But when do I get pants made from unstable molecules?

[Evan Williams]

Wasn't the first Diesel engine made to run on vegetable oil?

[Don Blake]

When do we all get repulsor rays!?!?

[Mike]

Wasn't the first Diesel engine made to run on vegetable oil?

Actually, it was designed to be able to run on many different kids of fuel, but he saw vegetable oil as a good choice because it "would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it". More here.

[Mo]

Evan,
I believe they can be easily converted to run on it nowadays as well. The problem is that it costs more and to farm the vegetables for the oil takes a lot of petroleum. So in the end, it does little to no good.

[Mark Denovich]

But if you can get waste vegetable oil free/cheap (think McDonald's) or if you can buy it and avoid the road tax, it can be economically viable. The higher the taxes in your country the more sense this makes.

Also, I believe vegetable oils result in lower tail pipe emissions. The big problem is that many diesel fuel pumps found here in the US (which operate at very high pressures) are unhappy when fed a steady diet of vegetable oil... they rely on the high sulpher content of our diesel for lubrication.

[Isaac Bartram]

The following story may be apochrophal.

Some diesel owners in England hit upon the idea of using the used oil from fish'n'chip fryers.

It worked fine. And the shop owners were more than happy to have a place to dispose of their waste.

The cars left a somewhat odd smell in their wakes but what eventually stopped the scheme was the government hitting the motorists up for the road tax.

Believe at your own peril.

[pigwiggle]

Man, people are dumb.

[pococurante]

It wasn't apocryphal -- it was all over the British press a while ago, or at least the Guardian. Searching for "chip fat" on their site brings up half a dozen articles among three pages that pertain to auto fuel, including this surprising editorial: "The adoption of biofuels would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster for the planet."

[Isaac Bartram]

pococurante

Thanks for the confirm. I think I heard it on NPR. Is the taxhound part true too or an embellishment?

I believe also that fish'n'chips are supposed to be fried in lard. I wonder if they've gone to veg oil, or does animal fat work for diesel too?

George Moonbot is always good for a chuckle. It won't be funny if he gets his wish and we all go back to living in caves.

[Jamie]

At least veg oil is better than using ethanol. I love it when people get started on that. Unfortunately, a lot of people can't understand why burning the energy equivilent of a gallon and a half of ethanol to distill one gallon of ethanol is an unambiguously bad idea.

[Gilbert Martin]

I'm still waiting for all those folks who're touting non-polluting hyrdogen fuel-cell powered cars as the next greatest thing to explain where they're going to get all that hydrogen to power those fuel cells without sucking up a lot of electricty from fossile fuel burning power plants in the process.

[NoStar]

Brian,
Search no more. I am the guy who invented a carburator that will give a car 120 mpg.
Unfortunately, it only runs on Starbuck's double shot lattes.

[Kermit]

Gilbert,

That could accelerate the conversion to nuclear fuel. That could freak out some enviromentalists, though. It ain't easy bein' green!

[Isaac Bartram]

Then Mrs Thatcher will have won.

http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm

[Pedro]

Darryl Hannah (spelling?) was on a talk show (the live one that just got cancelled) with Drew Carrey as guest host, and was going on about her car and house. Her house is apparently solar-powered, with any excess electricity being sold to the local utility, and her car runs on used vegetable oil, which she purchases and has shipped to her house. The company she purchases it from buys used oil from restaurants, etc.., cleans it up (or something) and then sells it for specifically this purpose. At her house, she stores it in tanks (like propane, I imagine) which have pumps installed to fill the car. I think she also said something about vegetable oil stations scattered around the U.S. I'm just going on memory, here...

[too many steves]

Exxon didn't intimidate that guy who invented the engine that was fueled by water, Saudi Arabia bought the rights to the engine (lots of hush $$$$) and is keeping it under wraps to make sure it never makes it to the market.

[Randolph Carter]

The enviro group at my college made a bio-diesel bus and they tour around the country sucking veggie fat out of fast food restauraunts for fuel and "educating" high schoolers about the benefits of bio-diesel. Problem is, the mod to the engine cost a lot of money and it gets poor mileage. I don't know what to think of the technology, but the people that run the bus are real asshats.

[haha]

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