From Cow to Crankcase: Synthetic oil from animal fat
We already fuel and lubricate our cars with animal byproducts, it just takes millions of years for the process to happen. Connecticut-based Green Earth Technologies has been marketing its G-Oil product for small engines at retailers like Home Depot, and the company is waiting on approval from the American Petroleum Institute new automotive applications. G-Oil is biodegradable (no word about the nasties that used oil holds in suspension, though) and made from animal fat that would typically be discarded by slaughterhouses. It's ironic that animal-derived oil is an alternative to petroleum, which shifted the world away from whale oil over a century ago. Mobil 1 and other synthetic oils have been around for decades, and do offer an alternative to straight dino juice, but Green Earth's technology guru Mat Zuckerman touts G-Oil as "better than anything out there." As the whaling industry discovered back in the day, there's not enough animal byproduct out there to satisfy the demand for oil or supplant petroleum's primacy, but every little bit helps. GET's Oklahoma facility is capable of producing 5 million bottles per month, and we wonder if it makes your engine's innards smell like meatloaf.
[Source: Detroit News via TCC]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chubaka 5:35PM (12/03/2008)
Will it cause your engine to emit animal sounds when you start your car?
Hehe, just kidding. Cool concept, but I'm not convinced. And yeah, I don't like meatloaf.
Reply
Kotse 12:02PM (12/04/2008)
Liposuction rules!! ;P
Yar 5:42PM (12/03/2008)
Well, at least the highways will smell awesome (If this moves to vehicles). Especially if your bio-diesel equipped pickup is burning a little oil.
Mmmm, burgers and french fries.
Reply
Jorge 5:43PM (12/03/2008)
This is a better use of animal origin fats, not like the dutch company that makes cookies with subproducts of liposuction. http://www.irfak.org/
Reply
why not the LS2LS7? 5:44PM (12/03/2008)
Saw this stuff come though before. You can add a chemical to the oil after you take it out of the car, that makes it biodegradable.
Which is a good thing, since you don't want it degrading (turning rancid) in your car. But it's a bad thing, because most people will simply throw away the oil without putting in the chemical first.
http://www.getg.com/products/products.php?CategoryID=1&ProductID=2
Reply
Ken 5:59PM (12/03/2008)
Ohhhh, can I get Baby Seal Synthetic Blend for my quad!?
Reply
CriticalMass 6:27PM (12/03/2008)
The excellent oil produced by the French company, MOTUL, is also derived from this technique. One of the best out there, it has provided lubrication for many motorsports applications, most notably the World Rally Car
Championship winning Subaru team.
Ken 6:38PM (12/03/2008)
You are saying a French company makes motor oil out of baby seals?
happy_penguin 6:50PM (12/03/2008)
I wonder what PETA has to say about this?
On a side note, I can't wait for someone to develop a big fat SUV that runs on spotted owls and endangered mammals.
Reply
Franz 6:53PM (12/03/2008)
LOL. Very Clarkson-esque comment. Good stuff.
pe3ko 10:12AM (12/04/2008)
EPA vs PETA!
Conundrum 6:57PM (12/03/2008)
I like Brad-Penn oil made from Pennsylvania crude.
I would use this lipid based oil if it proves to lubricate well without "lard" deposits on my engines innards.
Reply
JIm 8:05PM (12/03/2008)
"better than anything out there."
We can speculate all we want, but what does that mean, exactly?
Reply
asdf 12:12AM (12/04/2008)
Meat.
gunks up your arteries.
gunks up your engine.
Reply
happy_penguin 2:53AM (12/04/2008)
jkl;
inteller 8:55AM (12/04/2008)
Who said we don't have enough supply? There are enough fat okies around here to keep GET in business for 30 years. Free liposuctions for everybody!
Reply
Mark S. 10:35AM (12/04/2008)
Having known about thermal depolymerization for several years now, I've wondered why it hasn't been a major source for creating something comparable to light crude from anything like turkey offal (waste byproducts) to old computer case plastics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerisation
Reply
Epyx 1:48PM (12/04/2008)
I just watched an episode of Modern Marvals featuring the turkey (timely for Thanksgiving). The show went through the myriad uses of turkey's from the obvious - food - to the uses for all the bi-products.
The show did touch on using all the left-over crap and turning it into bio-diesel. I assume the process they used is the same you linked. Seemed really cool but my biggest question that was not answered on the show was if the produced energy is greater than the energy needed to convert the bi-products into fuel? Appeared that the plant needed a tremendous amount of energy to make the heat and pressure needed to make the fuel.
Very interesting to say the least. Turkey is a wonder product with so many uses.
Mark S. 8:36PM (12/04/2008)
Epyx: From the Wikipedia article:
"An approach that exceeded break-even was developed by Illinois microbiologist Paul Baskis in the 1980s and refined over the next 15 years (see U. S. patent 5,269,947, issued in 1993). The technology was finally developed for commercial use in 1996 by Changing World Technologies (CWT). Brian S. Appel (CEO of CWT) took the technology in 2001 and expanded and changed it into what is now referred to as TCP (Thermal Conversion Process), and has applied for several patents (see, for example, published patent application US 2004/0192980). A Thermal Depolymerization demonstration plant was completed in 1999 in Philadelphia by Thermal Depolymerization, LLC, and the first full-scale commercial plant was constructed in Carthage, Missouri, about 100 yards (100 m) from ConAgra Foods' massive Butterball turkey plant, where it is expected to process about 200 tons of turkey waste into 500 barrels (21,000 US gallons or 80 m³) of oil per day."
My first encounter to that claimed they could make the equivalent of "light sweet crude" (whatever that is) for about $11 a barrel. So again, I ask why isn't this more prevalent?
Reply