Tuesday, May 08, 2007

nuts for oil!

just read the most amazing story about an alternative fuel: coconuts! papua new guinea has long suffered the tremendous cost of importing oil based fuels, and has developed a viable solution.

it's all about the oil. pretty much, this seems like a different biodiesel. but it seems like we can grow a tree, and then take the coconut and make fuel. that sounds tremendously safer, cheaper & and more eco friendly than drilling wells, and so on.

8 comments:

JD said...

Forget the pina coladas, have you ever seen what all you can use hemp seed oil for? ;)

Adam said...

Heh, I want a car that runs on nuts.

edluv said...

eleanor, i deleted your comment so your number wasn't floating out there. but it's in my phone.

Unknown said...

Even if you're using coconut oil for biodiesel, you're still burning that oil. We could have used all these alternative oils fifty years ago. Now we need a combustion-free way of storing and using energy.

JD said...

Hey Jay,
The thing with biologically sourced fuel oils rather than petro is that the growing plant consumes as much CO2 from the air as is later released when the fuel is burned, so there is essentially no net increase in greenhouse gasses.

auritus said...

What JD said about trees being good carbon sinks. And also, I don't think conservation is an all or nothing deal. Just because it's a fuel that still produces CO2 doesn't mean it can't be a better choice than fossil fuels.

And oh yeah, Ed said nuts. Snicker.

Unknown said...

I thought I heard somewhere that the Sulfur dioxide emissions of biodiesel were actually worse than with petro diesel. I wasn't thinking about the disturbance that happens at the actual drilling site.
...I just want to get away from burning... It's so inefficient!

Adam said...

Seriously Jay.

I heard there are dilythium crystals on Mars. We need to get the hook up. Oh, and transporter technology. I want some of that.