Dookie Fuel?

There's been a whole lot of discussion on alternative forms of energy and fuel lately. All very exciting and frustrating at the same time. But very necessary, of course.

With T. Boone Pickens' plan, the idea is to embrace any and all ideas for alternative energy and advocates use of natural gas to run cars . Sounds like a great idea, no doubt, but I'd be interested in seeing how much it would cost for me to turn my Lincoln Town Car into a natural gas-compatible vehicle. I sincerely doubt it would be a worthwhile investment, considering I paid a whopping $200 for the car itself. And I can't afford a new car right now.

I don't have any kids, so I could easily just ditch the car altogether for my bicycle and the RCAT, bumming the occasional ride from friends and family when it comes to going to the grocery store and doing laundry. Heck, I've done it for years at a time. What about families with less money? Converting current vehicles to compressed natural gas may be out of the means of many who want to make the effort, but just don't have the wherewithal. According to greencar.com :

"The cost to convert to CNG can range from about $12,500 to $22,500 depending on the vehicle, engine, size of CNG tanks needed, and who does the converting. The greatest expense is for the CNG tanks, and the more capacity and number of tanks, the more expensive the conversion."

 

I'm certain that there will be a phase-out period for gasoline-running vehicles. Someday, we used car folk will be able to find a natural gas-running vehicle or, heck, even an electric car for less than a year's salary. It's not likely to happen anytime soon, though, when you consider that the only domestic CNG vehicle is the Honda GX, which has a MSRP of $24,590. Yowza. No tengo dinero.

With this thought in light, offshore drilling almost seems like a good thing, right? Only if it's done in addition to other alternative energy measures, of course.

I honestly started this rant simply wanting to talk about one interesting thing I read today. Unfortunately, I ended up going on a little rant. Let's just get to point in the juvenile title of this post: Lab makes renewable diesel fuel from E. coli poop. Read it, it's pretty neat .

"The biotech company LS9 Inc. is using single-celled bacteria to create an oil equivalent. These petroleum "production facilities" are so small, you can see them only under a microscope.

 

'We started in my garage two years ago, and we're producing barrels today, so things are moving pretty quickly,' said biochemist Stephen del Cardayre, LS9 vice president of research and development."

 

Admittedly, the research has only been done on a small scale right now, and they don't know how stable it would be on a large scale, but it's still pretty friggin' cool. Harmless strains of E Coli are fed plant material (can be waste, like wheat straw and wood chips), then they excrete fuel. It's not likely to fix all of our fuel woes, but it's just one of several ways to potentially cushion the transition from foreign oil to domestic products like natural gas, wind energy, et cetera.

Whether it's a realistic idea or not, I love the fact that there are some great minds coming out of the woodwork to brainstorm on fixing our current crisis, be it an oil billionaire like T. Boone Pickens, or the fellas from LS9, making fuel with bacteria poop in their garage.

I'm not one to try and shoot holes in anyone's plan, and I certainly don't think one or the other is right. I think we should get any and all efforts we can reasonably afford in action to get things right.

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Didn't your momma teach you to share? Share us.

Users' Comments (2)

Posted by codytalks 08-16-2008 11:54, , Guest   Amen to that...  We should be trying everything, everything we can.     Dookie Fule is also very fun to say.   » Reply to this comment...   Posted by Diggity Dogg 08-17-2008 13:19, , Registered   I think the cost of said natural gas and/or dookie fueled vehicles are logically going to be high in the beginning...just like every other new thing from plasma TVs to computers to (fill in the blank with something that started out at a high price now is much, much lower priced]. But with enough support and a "champion" like T Boone behind it, more people will get invovled helping to bring the cost down.     I wonder how else one could support this alternative fuel movement without actually participating!?!   » Reply to this comment...

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