I've heard several comments like this recently. One mentioned the amount of corn to fill up 1 SUV once vs how many people could survive off the same corn over a certain amount of time. I forget the source so I did a quick search and came up with this one. Doesn't seem to be the same amount I remember but close. http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update55.htm
The figure given a that site is: The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain it takes to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people.
I also heard on NPR it said that there is not enough arable land in the US to supply all of our vehicle fuel needs with corn. Even if these figures are off by a bit it just seems like solar and wind sources of electricity and going directly to electric for all energy needs is where we need to focus. I for one would be willing to be limited to a slower car and/or using public trans that is all electric. Why we even use anything else to cover any rooftop in the USA than photovoltaic cells I don't know. Here in Arizona after you get reimbursed by the state and federal incentives for adding solar cells or a windmill to your home it's almost (before anyone has fits I did say 'almost') as cheap as conventional energy sources from day one. Even if the majority of people in one state converted it would have an impact on the environment. And due to the stepped up production of said equipment it would stimulate the economy to!
Paul Patone is a con man, he has refused to submit his invention for independent verification. He has left a string on investors high and dry since the early 80's that is why he has been charged with securities fraud. He issues stocks in companies for inventions that do not exist and when the investors try to get the truth from him he claims the state or big corporations are out to get him.
Only the people that believe in Black Helicopters believe him.
His Karma is finally catching up to him and unless he gets his claims independently versified this is just another in a long list of cons he does pertaining to "Free Energy"
Here are some links about this con man [www.phact.org] [merlib.org]
He was also one of those guys in the late 70s and 80's selling plans about how to convert your car to run on water
I always mix sugary beverages in with my hydrocarbon fuels for my engines. Engines need a little caramelization to really work properly -- the car companies don't want you to know!
It would be nice if we had a real scientist on this site to debunk things like this. I personally can't see this actually working but crazier things have happened and the government sure have done stuff like this in the past, present and will in the future.
Come on Giz, this is clearly fraud. I'm saying this as a PhD chemist. Engines require fuels to undergo a chemical reaction to produce work. The soda has no components that can undergo useful reactions in a combustion engine. Soda has carbon dioxide, water, sugar, and other compounds in negligible amounts. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of combustion, not a fuel. Water is already a very stable compound, it can't burn, that's why we throw it on fire. Sugar can burn, just not very well and there isn't very much of it.
What this could be is that the liquid fuel is heated and vaporized before it hits the engine and the water vapor and carbon dioxide just don't interfere much with the combustion. However, this would only be diluting the actual petrochemical fuel.
At best, this is diluted gas. At worst, it is a scam. In no case would an engine using 25% gas and 75% soda produce more work than engine using the same volume of pure gas.
I'm not saying this as a proxy for the "greedy businessmen", I'm saying this as someone who understands thermodynamics and chemistry.
@The Lab: Apparently you missed the article months ago about the man who got water to burn ... [www.post-gazette.com]
As a scientist you should be one of the first people to never doubt anything. People "knew" that the world was flat at one point too, but obviously that's changed. Until you can without a doubt prove that this man's machine does not work then maybe you shouldn't be so cynical.
@Parentmk: That's not water that is burning, that is hydrogen and oxygen. Also, there are things that we actually do "know" and this is firmly in that category. Just because you don't know science don't presume that there aren't experts who do.
@The Lab: I agree with everything you have said, but I take exception with the statement that there are things we "know". There are things we can see occurring many times in a laboratory setting, but that does not mean we know beyond a doubt that they function a certain way. You are an immeasurable variable in your own experiments (as Heisenberg said) and therefore no experiment is perfect. If no experiment is perfect then no theory proven on experimental evidence is "fact".
@A3rd.Zero: Scientists spend a lot of time describing how well we know something. Without going into detail, when something has been shown to be true through multiple, independent experiments with good statistics, those things are the most "known" and "true" things that man has measured. If you are to doubt chemistry and thermo, you are basically doubting the very idea of "knowing".
I like how the reporter says that its not that great because the price of 2 x 2 liter bottles is more then a gallion of gas. He is dumb because what he failed to realize is that IT RUNS OFF SODA AND NOT GASOLINE... remember that whole environment issue we got goin on? apparently not...
Omigod, it goes deeper than Utah public officials ... the US Patent Office is even involved! He was allegedly framed after he "refused to sell his patents," but the PTO doesn't have any record of any patent ever issued to Patone. Even the patent office has destroyed all evidence of his invention! I'll bet this goes all the way to the top.
@DeusExMach may or may not be a star-bellied...: No, even worse. He wrote his patent down the back of Obama's real Kenyan Birth certificate. Now it's hidden deep in a government vault inside a UFO inside of the center of the earth.
Simple, see?
the CO2 would, one imagines, inhibit combustion. it seems to me using simple sugar water would be a cheaper and more reliable fuel - although this would be a great way to rid the world of mountain dew, AKA 'nectar of the tards'
This is wack. Does it work with flat soda? I'm going to go ahead and say that while it might work, the ouput will be atrocious. Hydrocarbon fuel will have a much higher energy density. Sugars, proteins and lipids in the soda will deter deflegration. This man just bought himself a one-way ticket to Crazy Town.
Ok....I lowered myself and went to his website. Not a single mention or hint of the chemistry behind it. Just all press releases. No mention of any scientific proof, no mention of a reputable lab confirming his so called discovery .....BUT THERE's MORE !!! You can go to GEET school for $1500 !!! Payable only through PayPal !!! This screams scam and deluded inventor just like the guy who hyped several Tech blogs about his "Free Energy Engine" and then the day came and it failed because of a bad bearing causing friction.....hmmmm...hype and then when put in the public eye...ooopppss it failed. There is a GEET Google Video that is titled "Free Energy". Oh please! An independent study was done and IF this worked, gas would have to be over $4 a gal. to even break even on buying the pop. This is another sham. Oh and please dont quote me the "they said the same thing about (Edison, Bell...etc.).
@SarasiTelemachus: Contrary to what the naysayers would have you believe, all we really need are an Orbo, a GEET, some Mountain Dew, a little duct tape and Richard Dean Anderson and we can be traveling the cosmos by Christmas!
I think it's awesome how there's still a group of people in America that it is OK to denigrate. It's no longer "PC" to make fun of blacks, asians, hispanics, Jews, or gays. But at least the Mormons will always be fair game - it's the American way!! Such an enlightened country we are!! (...dripping with sarcasm...)
No thank you. Turning your foodstuffs into fuel is generally a "bad thing" (TM). It increases the base food cost for everyone, but most especially the poor. And not just the poor in the US, but the poor in other countries as we gobble up their grains to build sugary syrups to use in fuel...
@Lite: When demand is high, we make adjustments to do produce the item.
The problem that came up about using corn for fuel, is that the government already subsidizes corn. If we stopped subsidizing corn, we wouldn't need it as much as a cheap sweetner, and maybe demand would flatten out.
@Daveed: Talk to people in Mexico about the rising prices in corn because it's more profitable for them to ship it to the US than turn it into food there...You know, where it's a staple food.
Now, assuming that we can produce corn production to accommodate the needed supply. Well, the most common fertilizer in the US is Anhydrous Ammonia. The most common way to produce this is from Natural Gas and/or LP.
It's complete and utter nonsense. All it does is heat up gas so that it enters the engine as a vapor. Notice how he says it needs "hydrocarbons" (aka, gas)? The Mountain Dew doesn't really do anything other than add spectacle. Anyway, fuel injectors already do an excellent job of atomizing your fuel for combustion, and the computer in your car optimizes fuel delivery/air mix for complete combustion. There's no conspiracy.
08/05/09
The figure given a that site is: The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain it takes to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people.
I also heard on NPR it said that there is not enough arable land in the US to supply all of our vehicle fuel needs with corn. Even if these figures are off by a bit it just seems like solar and wind sources of electricity and going directly to electric for all energy needs is where we need to focus. I for one would be willing to be limited to a slower car and/or using public trans that is all electric. Why we even use anything else to cover any rooftop in the USA than photovoltaic cells I don't know. Here in Arizona after you get reimbursed by the state and federal incentives for adding solar cells or a windmill to your home it's almost (before anyone has fits I did say 'almost') as cheap as conventional energy sources from day one. Even if the majority of people in one state converted it would have an impact on the environment. And due to the stepped up production of said equipment it would stimulate the economy to!
08/04/09
Only the people that believe in Black Helicopters believe him.
His Karma is finally catching up to him and unless he gets his claims independently versified this is just another in a long list of cons he does pertaining to "Free Energy"
Here are some links about this con man
[www.phact.org]
[merlib.org]
He was also one of those guys in the late 70s and 80's selling plans about how to convert your car to run on water
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What this could be is that the liquid fuel is heated and vaporized before it hits the engine and the water vapor and carbon dioxide just don't interfere much with the combustion. However, this would only be diluting the actual petrochemical fuel.
At best, this is diluted gas. At worst, it is a scam. In no case would an engine using 25% gas and 75% soda produce more work than engine using the same volume of pure gas.
I'm not saying this as a proxy for the "greedy businessmen", I'm saying this as someone who understands thermodynamics and chemistry.
08/04/09
As a scientist you should be one of the first people to never doubt anything. People "knew" that the world was flat at one point too, but obviously that's changed. Until you can without a doubt prove that this man's machine does not work then maybe you shouldn't be so cynical.
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Simple, see?
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Is everything having to do with Italy a crack on the Catholics?
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The problem that came up about using corn for fuel, is that the government already subsidizes corn. If we stopped subsidizing corn, we wouldn't need it as much as a cheap sweetner, and maybe demand would flatten out.
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Now, assuming that we can produce corn production to accommodate the needed supply. Well, the most common fertilizer in the US is Anhydrous Ammonia. The most common way to produce this is from Natural Gas and/or LP.
Weird cycle eh?
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