February 5, 2013 • 25 mins
We're not so far off from being able to power our cars using beer and banana peels, like Doc in Back to the Future. Rather than solving the energy crisis with Mr. Fusion, though, we'll be taking advantage of a technique that's been in use for hundreds of years: creating syngas through pyrolysis.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
stuff you should know from house works dot com. Hey buddy, Yeah,
before we get started, we have a big announcement here
about eight time change on our TV show. Yeah, we again,
(00:21):
we have a TV show that's pretty awesome. Um, we
are now on Saturday's beginning at noon. They're playing it
in blocks, so you can just sit down and basically
like totally lose yourself in the s y s K
TV world. Yeah. I think people marathon like TV shows
these days. I know I do. Well. Yeah, I mean,
you know, Nick and Night originated this kind of thing,
(00:42):
and the world has been eternally grateful ever since. For me,
those were the first marathons I ran into. So yeah,
I call it mainlining. That's what we do at our house.
We'll get there like a new show and we'll watch
like three seasons over two weeks until we just can't
stand it. So so Science Channel they know what they're doing.
They're like, oh, you like to mainline the show. Yeah,
we're gonna give you a taste. We're gonna give you
(01:03):
a taste. They're not gonna put it all on at once. Yeah,
until he run everything, So over the course of three
different Saturdays, Yeah, beginning February night February and in March night,
starting at noon. On all three days, you're gonna see
a couple of new episodes each time, and then some
reruns which classics. And then in the final day was
(01:23):
it March night, Yeah, you're gonna see the Lost Pilot episode, yeah,
which we can't believe. Yeah, the Lost Pilot. Yeah. And
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Channel or don't have cable or whatever and you watch
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You can get on Google Play and get on the
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all sorts of fun videos. It's very cool, so check
it out. Great, Okay, get down the business. Let's get
down to business. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, Charles Chuck, Brian is breathing on his glasses,
which means it's time for stuff. Is that what that means? Yeah,
(02:32):
it means my glasses are just dirty always. I think
I'm just greasy. It happens as a human that just
greased things up everywhere I walk. Everybody who wears glasses
gets their glasses greasy. Really yeah, if you don't, I
mean what, you're like a lizard or something. Okay, you
don't want that. You want to make your glasses greasy.
It's a small price to play for having hydrated skin.
(02:56):
Got you? That should be a T shirt. I'm sure
it will be in the newar feature Are you doing good?
I am doing well, sir. I enjoy these kind of
topics where we hit on some nice environmental things that
can help the environment. Same here. Um. This one's beautiful,
elegant in my opinion, and I apologize straight off for
everyone that was cringing when we couldn't pronounce the river
(03:19):
in Paris, France, the sin, the scene, the sin or
the same the sign, the sign one of those three. Yeah,
our friend and and mortal enemy, Joe and Dazzo hates
us now because of that of thing x dot com. Yeah,
if you haven't checked out thing x dot com, go
because they're certainly watching you. Yeah. Some of the former
Onion folks from New York split off and made this
(03:41):
comedy website and we're gonna be on it soon, but
we'll we'll let you know when that happens. Yeah. It's
an adult swim website too, right, Yeah, So despite the
fact that Joe is angry at us, and what do
you say? How can you guys be adults in the
world and not know how to pronounce that? How? How
do you not know how to pronounce the sin? Yeah?
I'm like, dude, I'm not Mr. Fancy Pants. I'm not
in Paris every other week like you. All right, that's
(04:04):
our Joe. Um, let's see, I've got some horrifying stats
for you. Oh boy, I opening to say the least.
Did you know that one third of the global food
supply goes to waste. One point eight billion tons around
the world of food go to waste. What's interesting is
(04:26):
it's not just developed countries. Developing countries waste about as
much food per person is developed countries too. Yeah. I
wonder if they waste though, because they can't help it,
because they don't have like the refrigerators and the storage
that we do. I don't know. And here we just
you know, toss it away, like so many discarded you know, yeah,
business cards, Well, there's a wow. I was not expecting
(04:49):
business cards trying something you just getting throw away? You
know what business cards? Anyone listening to this podcast if
you were expecting Chuck to say, business cards emailing right
now and let us know. Yeah, and also please don't
ever get business card and if you have, in the
best I apologize. UM. There's like a little dirty secret
among grocery stores where if fruit or vegetable produce it's
(05:10):
called collectively UM. Doesn't really look quite right, but it's
totally fine. Like examples I've seen as UM, like a
slight bruise to a tomato or something like that, or
a carrot that's not straight enough, they just throw it away. Yeah,
we've covered that and something I can't remember what if
it seems like we have, haven't we Yeah, it's sad.
I feel that they should have a well, I want
(05:31):
to bring it out into the light again. Well, they
should have a misshapen fruit and vegetable store where you
can buy a crooked carrot that tastes just as good
like one of the drawings from the Far Side, like
owns and operates this store. Remember the people like they
had like crooked heads and everything. I bet people would
buy this stuff though, if you you know, if you're uh,
don't have as much money, you might want to buy
(05:53):
a tomato that has a bruise and just cut that
little part off. Just a thought. I think it's a
good thought. So one point three, I think I said
one point eight. But one point three billion pounds tons
of food is wasted every year. That's just food, dude. Um.
In nineteen sixty, the average Americans generated two point six
(06:13):
eight pounds of waste a day. Today we're up to
about four point six pounds a day. You know what
it is in Chicago. You know, we mentioned Chicago in
this article as being overrun with garbage. In two thousand ten,
the average Chicago and produced fifteen pounds of waste fifteen
point four pounds per day. Is that garbage? I don't know,
And I think we're up, Like I think Chicago was
(06:36):
up three percent from the nineteen eighties. So I don't
know what's going on there, but they're like double what
they are in the state of Illinois period. That is
really nuts. I'm really curious what's going on there, just
doing UM and so overall we're producing, apparently most of
it from Chicago, two thirty million tons of waste in
the US every year. UM. And there are there is
(07:00):
there are some programs that are set up to where like, uh,
somebody who runs a landfill where all this stuff is
going and decomposing and producing methane, they may capture that methane,
burn it off UM or save it and use it
for you know, productive stuff. Or there's also UM things
called waste of energy facilities that just burn trash and
(07:24):
then the heat from that that incineration power creates steam
that powers turbines that generate electricity that make business cards
so that you throw away the circle of life is complete.
So I mean, there is there are programs in place
that UM that make productive use out of trash. This
is gonna be trashed anyway. But like that waste of
(07:45):
energy facility, that's just burning trash that generates a lot
of horrible stuff, horrible pollution. There are actually programs that
are even better that could someday be used to power
our cars through garbage. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, And of
course this article starts off with a little Back to
the Future reference. How can you not talk about garbage
(08:06):
fueling cars without mentioning Mr Fusion? So you thought about
that too, Yeah, immediately I told you menew what we
were doing. She's like, oh, like back to the Future,
And I was like, yeah, really, of course. I mean
I love that movie, but that's not what I think
of with garbage power cars. I forgot that he even
does that. Oh to me, that was a big impactful
scene at the end when he comes back in the
spaceship cracks open the Mr Fusion and puts like a
(08:27):
beer can and old beer and a banana pel in there.
I was like, oh, man, is that what the future
is gonna be like? And the answers, no, well, not
too far off. Maybe, Well let's talk about the how
Steven Spielberg got it wrong. That was is Robert se
mecas he produced it, that Spielberg producing I'm pretty sure
he did. Okay, you just want to blame him for everything.
(08:50):
I get a get a beef Spielberg beef. Um. Alright,
So gasification is what we're talking about, and it is
actually possible in this day and age, right now today
to create liquid fuel that you can burn in your
car from garbage. Yeah. Um. The the basis of this
is something called sin gas or synthesized or synthesis or
(09:13):
synthetic gas. Yes, but it's everybody's calls it sing gas
for sure, and it's the product of oh, I guess,
accelerated decomposition. Yeah, from what they call feedstock, which is
basically just your source fuel. And in this case, feed
stock can be everything from asphalt and sewage, fossil fuels.
(09:34):
Of course we know about uh two plastics, biomass and
agg waste and garbage municipal solid waste. Yeah. As long
as it's not metal or glass yea, and it's carbon
based it, well you can make sing gas out of it.
That should be in your recycling then people. Yeah, that
old bedframe of yours recycling. Um, although would if it's oh,
(09:59):
you mean the battle that frame. Yeah, yeah, you know
that that cheap one. They always it's like, that's so
hard to put together and you like pinch your fingers. Um.
So uh. The process of creating sin gas um uses
not combustion but intense heat, way more heat than it
would take for a normal combustion. I think degrees fahrenheight
(10:23):
um and about a thousand pounds of pressure. But it's
in a very low oxygen environment. So this stuff doesn't ignite,
it doesn't burn, It undergoes a chemical reaction called pyrolysis. Yeah.
The key here is heat without flame or one of
the keys. And this is not new. This sounds like
the future. But um, back in the six hundreds in
Belgium they were using wood and coal to power street
(10:46):
lamp so it was called town gas and they did
this also during World War Two during fuel shortages, they
made sin gas from wood chips and powered vehicles using them.
So it's not like a new thing, no. Pair. The
apartheid era South Africa did the same thing because they
were under international sanctions were basically cut off from the
(11:07):
rest of the world. Yeah remember that. Yeah, what was
the dude from the Eastreet Band he was the consultant
from Springsteen. No, the other guy, Glarence Clemens. No, the
other guy stevens An, Yes, little Stephen, he's who I
associate with. Don't play sun City. Yeah. I think it's
like a big proponent, I always think. And then he
(11:27):
did the Sopranos and forgot about son City, and now
he was a consultant and the guy who created the Sopranos.
Oh to being in a garage band in the sixties. Yeah,
I want to see that. I heard it's good, supposed
to be awesome. Um so okay, So you take your
your feedstock, which is what we're specifically talking about his
garbage today. Um, you take your garbage. Say you're been
(11:48):
an appeals, okay, and you want to dry him out
because that's how it goes. But you you put them
under in this thing called a gas of fire, which
depending on whether you make went at home, which there's
videos on YouTube for how to make them, or you
could go down to Tampa and see one that's that
provides power for sixty homes. But a gas fire is this,
(12:09):
uh in this low oxygen, high pressure, high temperature environment
that produces pyrolysis. Um that chemical change that chemical decomposition
where this carbon based feedstock, uh, the volatile chemicals basically
separate from it and it becomes this thing called char,
and the char is further reduced to um, carbon monoxide,
(12:34):
and hydrogen, and that is sin gas. And that sin
gas alone could power certain types of vehicles. I think
the the Honda Civic in g V and apparently there
are in Toronto. Of course, in Canada they're always doing
great things like this. They have garbage trucks and busses
(12:56):
I think, or no, maybe dis garbage trucks that run
on compressed natural gas. So you could actually fuel it
with sin gas UM. In order to use that fuel,
what more widespread, you have to convert it to ethanol UM.
And there's a company that's interviewed in this article how
garbage powered cars could work. Yeah, I guess that's how
(13:16):
you say it. Yeah. UM. And they take sin gas
and they feed it to a bunch of um bacteria
in a vat of water. That's amazing, and this bacteria,
equally amazing, are patented. Disturbing. I don't think life forms
should be patentable, but yes, it is a patented bacteria
that eats sing gas. And then expels ethanol. And then
(13:39):
they add a little gasoline to the ethanol. The d
nature it so they don't have to pay a twenty
seven dollar a gallon liquor tax. Yeah, that's amazing to me.
It's almost the same thing as moonshine until you d
nature it. So they said, add a little gas to it,
and we don't have to pay that tax, right, spirit tax?
How much is it? Like it's gallon? Yeah, and I
(14:00):
mean they're producing a lot of ethanol as much as
they can. That's a lot of extra money they don't
have to pay just from adding a little gasoline. Um,
and then what you have is engine grade ethanol ready
to be mixed with gasoline, which if you go to
a gas station, there's a pretty good chance you'll see
a sticker that says this gas may contain up the
fifteen percent ethanol. So your car that you're driving now
(14:22):
can run on the sin gas created from garbage, or
if you have a flex fuel car, uh, that that
can use up the ethanol gasoline. So we could use
even more of this stuff. Don't they have ethanol only pumps? Yeah,
like ten or they say, or ethanol only Oh is
that right? I think so I might be wrong there
(14:43):
that maybe flex fuel, which is more I've seen. I
have seen ethanol, but I've seen flex fuel more frequently.
And then you see like that ten mixture eighty five
gas or fifteen percent ethanol mixture like almost everywhere. Yeah,
that's how I screw up, like every eater I've ever had,
because you have to mix the oil and the and
the the two cycles. Gas man, I always do it wrong.
(15:05):
I remember that. He used to be like lawn boy,
why are you so difficult? So? Um, one of the
things you want to do here is well, first you
got to separate all the garbage. That's one of the problems.
But you want stuff that's uniform and stuff that, um,
if it melts, it's not good apparently. So even though
you can use things like diapers for gas and ethanol,
(15:26):
it's pretty awesome. Um, what you want is something more
like would something carbon base that well just sort of
disappear when it gets hot, right, um. And wood is
probably the best feedstock forcing gas because apparently it leaves
about two behind uh. And the rest is the rest
becomes sing gas. Uh. And it's not all sing gas
(15:47):
like there are other things, especially even in wood, something
is pure as would um, there are impurities. Uh, if
you're burning PVC plastic, there's a lot of impurities. But
the beautiful thing about um using a gasifier to produce
sing gas from any kind of feed stock is it's
(16:07):
this closed um system and you can control and separate
all those different chemicals and impurities out, so you just
have piercing gas, which when burned has burned at a
really high temperature, so it has almost no emissions when
you use just the sing gas. And that's no matter
what feed stock is originally used, zero emissions because whatever
(16:30):
feeds like you use, you can you can sort these
impurities out and in some cases you can reuse the impurities,
like if you use discarded tires. Apparently there's a hundred
and eighty eight million scrap tires just sitting around in
the US breeding mosquitoes catching fire randomly for eight months. Yeah. Um,
they figured out that they can use tires, scrap tires
(16:52):
as a feedstock for sing gas and even cooler. After
the sing gas is separated, you still have that char
leftover you can use at and it's more efficient than
regular coal. Really yeah wow, So I mean there's really
not too many downsides to creating sing gas because you're
especially if you're using it as if you're using garbage
(17:12):
as a fizza, because it was gonna go to waste anyway, right, True,
that's a good point, um, And I don't know if
you'd count them as problems. There are some setbacks, Uh.
The reason why this isn't so widespread is there are
setbacks like, um, you know, you gotta sort through this waste.
You can't just go to your landfill and dump a
truckload of garbage. You know, you have to separate it
(17:34):
and make sure it's the right kind of stuff. So
that costs money. You have to get rid of the
bed frames, the glass, that stuff, yep, and so, and
you need to get it fairly uniform. So there is
some money, um, and costs involved in in the like
the preparatory stages that probably I guess aren't feasible right
now in a widespread manner. And then there's also the
thing we've talked about this plenty of times. Remember we
(17:55):
talk about energies, the net energy ratio. Yeah, you want
more energy put out then you put into it or
else it's just not viable. And apparently a study of biofuels,
found that almost all of them require more energy. Like
the lowest they found more sunflower oil. Apparently, like a
biofuel based on that requires more. So you have to
(18:18):
put in two to get out one or one to one.
So that's the battle then to keep making that smaller. Right,
But the beauty thing with sing gases, that's not necessarily
the case. Now I don't know about this this company,
what is it costaca um what how much more coskata?
How much more energy it requires for them to turn
(18:39):
that sing gas into um ethanol? And if they you know,
if there's a net energy loss or a gain or what.
But um, if you're just burning sing gas, there's it's
it's it's very elegant, it's very clean, and there's um
there's like I think it's it's a net energy gain. Awesome. Well,
(19:01):
one of the other problems is you gotta dry it
out to UH. You can't throw like you can use
waste materials like um biomass uh like leftover pulp and
stuff from wood mills, grass and corn. But that's moist
and so you have to remove the moisture, which is
gonna cost a little more money. And then the article
mentions too. On the other end, you're gonna have a
(19:22):
little issue with uh ash producing too much ash, right,
depending on what you use. Yeah, so that's like what
you said, wood is the best because they only produce
about two But um, if you're not using wood, you're
gonna have leftover ash to deal with. But it can,
like we found with tires punting old tires, you you
have that stuff left over, and sometimes it can be
(19:43):
useful depending on what you're doing with that's true. And
I know they recycled the water use in the little
bacterial process, which is kind of cool. Um. Another advantage
of creating sin gases. I read a study that found
you can take c O two and inject it into
a gap a fire and it actually produces more sin gas,
more carbon monoxide. Right, So that if you can sequest
(20:07):
your CEO two from say like a regular cold fire
power plant and bringing it to a sin gas plant,
you can use it for that to convert it into
something useful rather than just polluting it. Interesting. Yeah, yeah,
And I think that this stuff, like, the more you
work toward these problems, the cheaper it's it's gonna get.
I mean, one of the reasons that petroleum is the
(20:29):
way to go is because we've been using it for
so long and it's become like one of the more
uh cost efficient ways to fuel a car. Um may
not seem like it these days, but they've got the
process downpacks they've been doing it for you know, decades,
Like think about fifty or sixty years from now where
we might be with some of this stuff, be using
bananas and beer, just putting it right into our car.
(20:51):
You know, how about this dude, chip Beam? Did you
look this guy up? He's the guy that Yeah, he
took an all this easy trooper and basically cut the
rear um covered portion out to where it has like
a pickup bed and has a big kettle there where
he burns wood chips. And he has been running this
eight eight a scissor trooper on wood for quite a
(21:13):
while now to stop speed not too bad. Yeah it's
good city speed. Yeah it's getting around town car and
uh apparently it's it's it's the original engine. Like he
didn't have to modify the engine at all. And it
smells like faintly of charcoal barbecue. That's really interesting that
he didn't modify the engine, not the least bed and
crazy and he's working on a Mercury and ninety one
(21:35):
Mercury cougar. His goal is to make the fastest wood
burning car in the world. His goal, So I guess
forty five if he wants to go like seventy Didn't
that just the voke images of like Granny Clampit, like
on a rocking chair on top of the Clampit family car. Yeah,
I like this guy that. That's pretty awesome. I do too,
But I had a question about his setup. So, like,
(21:57):
if you're creating sin gas and like this closed and ironment,
you're able to trap impurities and use them or sequester
them or do whatever with them to keep them from
enterning the atmosphere. If you're if you're creating sing gas
as you're burning it, what kind of emissions are there
from that? I had a question about that. I don't know.
I bet we could get in touch with chip Beam. Well,
let's do it. It It seems forgettable. Yeah, do you got anything? Uh? No,
(22:21):
I I think that's it. We touched on everything. Stop
wasting food? What is wrong with you? Stop wasting food? Yeah?
I think that's everything. Okay, Uh, if you want to
learn more about garbage, powered cars, energy, all that kind
of stuff. You can type any of that into the
search bar at how stuffworks dot com. Also try typing
gasification G A S I, F I C A T
(22:44):
I O N into the search bar. They'll bring up
a pretty cool companion article that we worked off of
as well. Um and I said, search barge means it's time,
of course for a listener. Mayo, that's right, Josh, I'm
gonna call this yet another or librarian email unless people
don't want to hear from librarians anymore. I think to charge.
(23:07):
I think they've read like a couple this mix. Three
guys graduated from library school in May and started to
work at a small university library in South Texas. Like
many librarians, I've always been very passionate about banned books
and censorship. While in library school, as a president of
my university student chapter of the American Library Association, our
(23:28):
group decided to sell t shirts as a fundraiser. Several
of the officers created design ideas and we asked students
to vote on their favorite before we started taking orders.
The majority of students voted for a design including quotes
from out of copyright books from out of copyright books,
including many frequently challenged or band books said over a
(23:49):
drawing of an open book. I sent out several emails
and students to promote the design and start taking orders.
After receiving several of these orders, I received an email
from a student was upset about the design. He was
most upset about a Kurt Vonnegut quote. I don't want
to get into specifics of the email, but I was
appalled that a library school student wanted to censor our
library school group. As librarians, we are obligated to provide information,
(24:12):
not limited. We ended up using quotes about intellectual freedom,
the freedom to read, and censorships and libraries to appease
the naysayers. I'm still bitter about the entire situation. You
can't wait to hang out my band Books Week posters
on my office store. So her plan, Megan's plan for
band Books Week is to read as many of them
as she can. The good barriages. Everyone could do the
(24:35):
same thing, and to eat the traditional band book week
Swedish meatballs. That's right, So cheers from South Texas from Megan,
and enjoy those band books and Swedish meatballs. Yeah. Thanks
A lot Megan, Thanks to everybody who celebrates Ban Books Week. Um,
if you have a suggestion for a ban book, your
favorite band book, we want to hear it. We'll tell
(24:55):
everybody about it. Let's just get talking about it, Okay, guys. UM,
you can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. UH, you
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com, and you can visit our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
(25:19):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go Places,
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
stuff you should know from house works dot com. Hey buddy, Yeah,
before we get started, we have a big announcement here
about eight time change on our TV show. Yeah, we again,
(00:21):
we have a TV show that's pretty awesome. Um, we
are now on Saturday's beginning at noon. They're playing it
in blocks, so you can just sit down and basically
like totally lose yourself in the s y s K
TV world. Yeah. I think people marathon like TV shows
these days. I know I do. Well. Yeah, I mean,
you know, Nick and Night originated this kind of thing,
(00:42):
and the world has been eternally grateful ever since. For me,
those were the first marathons I ran into. So yeah,
I call it mainlining. That's what we do at our house.
We'll get there like a new show and we'll watch
like three seasons over two weeks until we just can't
stand it. So so Science Channel they know what they're doing.
They're like, oh, you like to mainline the show. Yeah,
we're gonna give you a taste. We're gonna give you
(01:03):
a taste. They're not gonna put it all on at once. Yeah,
until he run everything, So over the course of three
different Saturdays, Yeah, beginning February night February and in March night,
starting at noon. On all three days, you're gonna see
a couple of new episodes each time, and then some
reruns which classics. And then in the final day was
(01:23):
it March night, Yeah, you're gonna see the Lost Pilot episode, yeah,
which we can't believe. Yeah, the Lost Pilot. Yeah. And
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You can get on Google Play and get on the
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all sorts of fun videos. It's very cool, so check
it out. Great, Okay, get down the business. Let's get
down to business. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, Charles Chuck, Brian is breathing on his glasses,
which means it's time for stuff. Is that what that means? Yeah,
(02:32):
it means my glasses are just dirty always. I think
I'm just greasy. It happens as a human that just
greased things up everywhere I walk. Everybody who wears glasses
gets their glasses greasy. Really yeah, if you don't, I
mean what, you're like a lizard or something. Okay, you
don't want that. You want to make your glasses greasy.
It's a small price to play for having hydrated skin.
(02:56):
Got you? That should be a T shirt. I'm sure
it will be in the newar feature Are you doing good?
I am doing well, sir. I enjoy these kind of
topics where we hit on some nice environmental things that
can help the environment. Same here. Um. This one's beautiful,
elegant in my opinion, and I apologize straight off for
everyone that was cringing when we couldn't pronounce the river
(03:19):
in Paris, France, the sin, the scene, the sin or
the same the sign, the sign one of those three. Yeah,
our friend and and mortal enemy, Joe and Dazzo hates
us now because of that of thing x dot com. Yeah,
if you haven't checked out thing x dot com, go
because they're certainly watching you. Yeah. Some of the former
Onion folks from New York split off and made this
(03:41):
comedy website and we're gonna be on it soon, but
we'll we'll let you know when that happens. Yeah. It's
an adult swim website too, right, Yeah, So despite the
fact that Joe is angry at us, and what do
you say? How can you guys be adults in the
world and not know how to pronounce that? How? How
do you not know how to pronounce the sin? Yeah?
I'm like, dude, I'm not Mr. Fancy Pants. I'm not
in Paris every other week like you. All right, that's
(04:04):
our Joe. Um, let's see, I've got some horrifying stats
for you. Oh boy, I opening to say the least.
Did you know that one third of the global food
supply goes to waste. One point eight billion tons around
the world of food go to waste. What's interesting is
(04:26):
it's not just developed countries. Developing countries waste about as
much food per person is developed countries too. Yeah. I
wonder if they waste though, because they can't help it,
because they don't have like the refrigerators and the storage
that we do. I don't know. And here we just
you know, toss it away, like so many discarded you know, yeah,
business cards, Well, there's a wow. I was not expecting
(04:49):
business cards trying something you just getting throw away? You
know what business cards? Anyone listening to this podcast if
you were expecting Chuck to say, business cards emailing right
now and let us know. Yeah, and also please don't
ever get business card and if you have, in the
best I apologize. UM. There's like a little dirty secret
among grocery stores where if fruit or vegetable produce it's
(05:10):
called collectively UM. Doesn't really look quite right, but it's
totally fine. Like examples I've seen as UM, like a
slight bruise to a tomato or something like that, or
a carrot that's not straight enough, they just throw it away. Yeah,
we've covered that and something I can't remember what if
it seems like we have, haven't we Yeah, it's sad.
I feel that they should have a well, I want
(05:31):
to bring it out into the light again. Well, they
should have a misshapen fruit and vegetable store where you
can buy a crooked carrot that tastes just as good
like one of the drawings from the Far Side, like
owns and operates this store. Remember the people like they
had like crooked heads and everything. I bet people would
buy this stuff though, if you you know, if you're uh,
don't have as much money, you might want to buy
(05:53):
a tomato that has a bruise and just cut that
little part off. Just a thought. I think it's a
good thought. So one point three, I think I said
one point eight. But one point three billion pounds tons
of food is wasted every year. That's just food, dude. Um.
In nineteen sixty, the average Americans generated two point six
(06:13):
eight pounds of waste a day. Today we're up to
about four point six pounds a day. You know what
it is in Chicago. You know, we mentioned Chicago in
this article as being overrun with garbage. In two thousand ten,
the average Chicago and produced fifteen pounds of waste fifteen
point four pounds per day. Is that garbage? I don't know,
And I think we're up, Like I think Chicago was
(06:36):
up three percent from the nineteen eighties. So I don't
know what's going on there, but they're like double what
they are in the state of Illinois period. That is
really nuts. I'm really curious what's going on there, just
doing UM and so overall we're producing, apparently most of
it from Chicago, two thirty million tons of waste in
the US every year. UM. And there are there is
(07:00):
there are some programs that are set up to where like, uh,
somebody who runs a landfill where all this stuff is
going and decomposing and producing methane, they may capture that methane,
burn it off UM or save it and use it
for you know, productive stuff. Or there's also UM things
called waste of energy facilities that just burn trash and
(07:24):
then the heat from that that incineration power creates steam
that powers turbines that generate electricity that make business cards
so that you throw away the circle of life is complete.
So I mean, there is there are programs in place
that UM that make productive use out of trash. This
is gonna be trashed anyway. But like that waste of
(07:45):
energy facility, that's just burning trash that generates a lot
of horrible stuff, horrible pollution. There are actually programs that
are even better that could someday be used to power
our cars through garbage. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, And of
course this article starts off with a little Back to
the Future reference. How can you not talk about garbage
(08:06):
fueling cars without mentioning Mr Fusion? So you thought about
that too, Yeah, immediately I told you menew what we
were doing. She's like, oh, like back to the Future,
And I was like, yeah, really, of course. I mean
I love that movie, but that's not what I think
of with garbage power cars. I forgot that he even
does that. Oh to me, that was a big impactful
scene at the end when he comes back in the
spaceship cracks open the Mr Fusion and puts like a
(08:27):
beer can and old beer and a banana pel in there.
I was like, oh, man, is that what the future
is gonna be like? And the answers, no, well, not
too far off. Maybe, Well let's talk about the how
Steven Spielberg got it wrong. That was is Robert se
mecas he produced it, that Spielberg producing I'm pretty sure
he did. Okay, you just want to blame him for everything.
(08:50):
I get a get a beef Spielberg beef. Um. Alright,
So gasification is what we're talking about, and it is
actually possible in this day and age, right now today
to create liquid fuel that you can burn in your
car from garbage. Yeah. Um. The the basis of this
is something called sin gas or synthesized or synthesis or
(09:13):
synthetic gas. Yes, but it's everybody's calls it sing gas
for sure, and it's the product of oh, I guess,
accelerated decomposition. Yeah, from what they call feedstock, which is
basically just your source fuel. And in this case, feed
stock can be everything from asphalt and sewage, fossil fuels.
(09:34):
Of course we know about uh two plastics, biomass and
agg waste and garbage municipal solid waste. Yeah. As long
as it's not metal or glass yea, and it's carbon
based it, well you can make sing gas out of it.
That should be in your recycling then people. Yeah, that
old bedframe of yours recycling. Um, although would if it's oh,
(09:59):
you mean the battle that frame. Yeah, yeah, you know
that that cheap one. They always it's like, that's so
hard to put together and you like pinch your fingers. Um.
So uh. The process of creating sin gas um uses
not combustion but intense heat, way more heat than it
would take for a normal combustion. I think degrees fahrenheight
(10:23):
um and about a thousand pounds of pressure. But it's
in a very low oxygen environment. So this stuff doesn't ignite,
it doesn't burn, It undergoes a chemical reaction called pyrolysis. Yeah.
The key here is heat without flame or one of
the keys. And this is not new. This sounds like
the future. But um, back in the six hundreds in
Belgium they were using wood and coal to power street
(10:46):
lamp so it was called town gas and they did
this also during World War Two during fuel shortages, they
made sin gas from wood chips and powered vehicles using them.
So it's not like a new thing, no. Pair. The
apartheid era South Africa did the same thing because they
were under international sanctions were basically cut off from the
(11:07):
rest of the world. Yeah remember that. Yeah, what was
the dude from the Eastreet Band he was the consultant
from Springsteen. No, the other guy, Glarence Clemens. No, the
other guy stevens An, Yes, little Stephen, he's who I
associate with. Don't play sun City. Yeah. I think it's
like a big proponent, I always think. And then he
(11:27):
did the Sopranos and forgot about son City, and now
he was a consultant and the guy who created the Sopranos.
Oh to being in a garage band in the sixties. Yeah,
I want to see that. I heard it's good, supposed
to be awesome. Um so okay, So you take your
your feedstock, which is what we're specifically talking about his
garbage today. Um, you take your garbage. Say you're been
(11:48):
an appeals, okay, and you want to dry him out
because that's how it goes. But you you put them
under in this thing called a gas of fire, which
depending on whether you make went at home, which there's
videos on YouTube for how to make them, or you
could go down to Tampa and see one that's that
provides power for sixty homes. But a gas fire is this,
(12:09):
uh in this low oxygen, high pressure, high temperature environment
that produces pyrolysis. Um that chemical change that chemical decomposition
where this carbon based feedstock, uh, the volatile chemicals basically
separate from it and it becomes this thing called char,
and the char is further reduced to um, carbon monoxide,
(12:34):
and hydrogen, and that is sin gas. And that sin
gas alone could power certain types of vehicles. I think
the the Honda Civic in g V and apparently there
are in Toronto. Of course, in Canada they're always doing
great things like this. They have garbage trucks and busses
(12:56):
I think, or no, maybe dis garbage trucks that run
on compressed natural gas. So you could actually fuel it
with sin gas UM. In order to use that fuel,
what more widespread, you have to convert it to ethanol UM.
And there's a company that's interviewed in this article how
garbage powered cars could work. Yeah, I guess that's how
(13:16):
you say it. Yeah. UM. And they take sin gas
and they feed it to a bunch of um bacteria
in a vat of water. That's amazing, and this bacteria,
equally amazing, are patented. Disturbing. I don't think life forms
should be patentable, but yes, it is a patented bacteria
that eats sing gas. And then expels ethanol. And then
(13:39):
they add a little gasoline to the ethanol. The d
nature it so they don't have to pay a twenty
seven dollar a gallon liquor tax. Yeah, that's amazing to me.
It's almost the same thing as moonshine until you d
nature it. So they said, add a little gas to it,
and we don't have to pay that tax, right, spirit tax?
How much is it? Like it's gallon? Yeah, and I
(14:00):
mean they're producing a lot of ethanol as much as
they can. That's a lot of extra money they don't
have to pay just from adding a little gasoline. Um,
and then what you have is engine grade ethanol ready
to be mixed with gasoline, which if you go to
a gas station, there's a pretty good chance you'll see
a sticker that says this gas may contain up the
fifteen percent ethanol. So your car that you're driving now
(14:22):
can run on the sin gas created from garbage, or
if you have a flex fuel car, uh, that that
can use up the ethanol gasoline. So we could use
even more of this stuff. Don't they have ethanol only pumps? Yeah,
like ten or they say, or ethanol only Oh is
that right? I think so I might be wrong there
(14:43):
that maybe flex fuel, which is more I've seen. I
have seen ethanol, but I've seen flex fuel more frequently.
And then you see like that ten mixture eighty five
gas or fifteen percent ethanol mixture like almost everywhere. Yeah,
that's how I screw up, like every eater I've ever had,
because you have to mix the oil and the and
the the two cycles. Gas man, I always do it wrong.
(15:05):
I remember that. He used to be like lawn boy,
why are you so difficult? So? Um, one of the
things you want to do here is well, first you
got to separate all the garbage. That's one of the problems.
But you want stuff that's uniform and stuff that, um,
if it melts, it's not good apparently. So even though
you can use things like diapers for gas and ethanol,
(15:26):
it's pretty awesome. Um, what you want is something more
like would something carbon base that well just sort of
disappear when it gets hot, right, um. And wood is
probably the best feedstock forcing gas because apparently it leaves
about two behind uh. And the rest is the rest
becomes sing gas. Uh. And it's not all sing gas
(15:47):
like there are other things, especially even in wood, something
is pure as would um, there are impurities. Uh, if
you're burning PVC plastic, there's a lot of impurities. But
the beautiful thing about um using a gasifier to produce
sing gas from any kind of feed stock is it's
(16:07):
this closed um system and you can control and separate
all those different chemicals and impurities out, so you just
have piercing gas, which when burned has burned at a
really high temperature, so it has almost no emissions when
you use just the sing gas. And that's no matter
what feed stock is originally used, zero emissions because whatever
(16:30):
feeds like you use, you can you can sort these
impurities out and in some cases you can reuse the impurities,
like if you use discarded tires. Apparently there's a hundred
and eighty eight million scrap tires just sitting around in
the US breeding mosquitoes catching fire randomly for eight months. Yeah. Um,
they figured out that they can use tires, scrap tires
(16:52):
as a feedstock for sing gas and even cooler. After
the sing gas is separated, you still have that char
leftover you can use at and it's more efficient than
regular coal. Really yeah wow, So I mean there's really
not too many downsides to creating sing gas because you're
especially if you're using it as if you're using garbage
(17:12):
as a fizza, because it was gonna go to waste anyway, right, True,
that's a good point, um, And I don't know if
you'd count them as problems. There are some setbacks, Uh.
The reason why this isn't so widespread is there are
setbacks like, um, you know, you gotta sort through this waste.
You can't just go to your landfill and dump a
truckload of garbage. You know, you have to separate it
(17:34):
and make sure it's the right kind of stuff. So
that costs money. You have to get rid of the
bed frames, the glass, that stuff, yep, and so, and
you need to get it fairly uniform. So there is
some money, um, and costs involved in in the like
the preparatory stages that probably I guess aren't feasible right
now in a widespread manner. And then there's also the
thing we've talked about this plenty of times. Remember we
(17:55):
talk about energies, the net energy ratio. Yeah, you want
more energy put out then you put into it or
else it's just not viable. And apparently a study of biofuels,
found that almost all of them require more energy. Like
the lowest they found more sunflower oil. Apparently, like a
biofuel based on that requires more. So you have to
(18:18):
put in two to get out one or one to one.
So that's the battle then to keep making that smaller. Right,
But the beauty thing with sing gases, that's not necessarily
the case. Now I don't know about this this company,
what is it costaca um what how much more coskata?
How much more energy it requires for them to turn
(18:39):
that sing gas into um ethanol? And if they you know,
if there's a net energy loss or a gain or what.
But um, if you're just burning sing gas, there's it's
it's it's very elegant, it's very clean, and there's um
there's like I think it's it's a net energy gain. Awesome. Well,
(19:01):
one of the other problems is you gotta dry it
out to UH. You can't throw like you can use
waste materials like um biomass uh like leftover pulp and
stuff from wood mills, grass and corn. But that's moist
and so you have to remove the moisture, which is
gonna cost a little more money. And then the article
mentions too. On the other end, you're gonna have a
(19:22):
little issue with uh ash producing too much ash, right,
depending on what you use. Yeah, so that's like what
you said, wood is the best because they only produce
about two But um, if you're not using wood, you're
gonna have leftover ash to deal with. But it can,
like we found with tires punting old tires, you you
have that stuff left over, and sometimes it can be
(19:43):
useful depending on what you're doing with that's true. And
I know they recycled the water use in the little
bacterial process, which is kind of cool. Um. Another advantage
of creating sin gases. I read a study that found
you can take c O two and inject it into
a gap a fire and it actually produces more sin gas,
more carbon monoxide. Right, So that if you can sequest
(20:07):
your CEO two from say like a regular cold fire
power plant and bringing it to a sin gas plant,
you can use it for that to convert it into
something useful rather than just polluting it. Interesting. Yeah, yeah,
And I think that this stuff, like, the more you
work toward these problems, the cheaper it's it's gonna get.
I mean, one of the reasons that petroleum is the
(20:29):
way to go is because we've been using it for
so long and it's become like one of the more
uh cost efficient ways to fuel a car. Um may
not seem like it these days, but they've got the
process downpacks they've been doing it for you know, decades,
Like think about fifty or sixty years from now where
we might be with some of this stuff, be using
bananas and beer, just putting it right into our car.
(20:51):
You know, how about this dude, chip Beam? Did you
look this guy up? He's the guy that Yeah, he
took an all this easy trooper and basically cut the
rear um covered portion out to where it has like
a pickup bed and has a big kettle there where
he burns wood chips. And he has been running this
eight eight a scissor trooper on wood for quite a
(21:13):
while now to stop speed not too bad. Yeah it's
good city speed. Yeah it's getting around town car and
uh apparently it's it's it's the original engine. Like he
didn't have to modify the engine at all. And it
smells like faintly of charcoal barbecue. That's really interesting that
he didn't modify the engine, not the least bed and
crazy and he's working on a Mercury and ninety one
(21:35):
Mercury cougar. His goal is to make the fastest wood
burning car in the world. His goal, So I guess
forty five if he wants to go like seventy Didn't
that just the voke images of like Granny Clampit, like
on a rocking chair on top of the Clampit family car. Yeah,
I like this guy that. That's pretty awesome. I do too,
But I had a question about his setup. So, like,
(21:57):
if you're creating sin gas and like this closed and ironment,
you're able to trap impurities and use them or sequester
them or do whatever with them to keep them from
enterning the atmosphere. If you're if you're creating sing gas
as you're burning it, what kind of emissions are there
from that? I had a question about that. I don't know.
I bet we could get in touch with chip Beam. Well,
let's do it. It It seems forgettable. Yeah, do you got anything? Uh? No,
(22:21):
I I think that's it. We touched on everything. Stop
wasting food? What is wrong with you? Stop wasting food? Yeah?
I think that's everything. Okay, Uh, if you want to
learn more about garbage, powered cars, energy, all that kind
of stuff. You can type any of that into the
search bar at how stuffworks dot com. Also try typing
gasification G A S I, F I C A T
(22:44):
I O N into the search bar. They'll bring up
a pretty cool companion article that we worked off of
as well. Um and I said, search barge means it's time,
of course for a listener. Mayo, that's right, Josh, I'm
gonna call this yet another or librarian email unless people
don't want to hear from librarians anymore. I think to charge.
(23:07):
I think they've read like a couple this mix. Three
guys graduated from library school in May and started to
work at a small university library in South Texas. Like
many librarians, I've always been very passionate about banned books
and censorship. While in library school, as a president of
my university student chapter of the American Library Association, our
(23:28):
group decided to sell t shirts as a fundraiser. Several
of the officers created design ideas and we asked students
to vote on their favorite before we started taking orders.
The majority of students voted for a design including quotes
from out of copyright books from out of copyright books,
including many frequently challenged or band books said over a
(23:49):
drawing of an open book. I sent out several emails
and students to promote the design and start taking orders.
After receiving several of these orders, I received an email
from a student was upset about the design. He was
most upset about a Kurt Vonnegut quote. I don't want
to get into specifics of the email, but I was
appalled that a library school student wanted to censor our
library school group. As librarians, we are obligated to provide information,
(24:12):
not limited. We ended up using quotes about intellectual freedom,
the freedom to read, and censorships and libraries to appease
the naysayers. I'm still bitter about the entire situation. You
can't wait to hang out my band Books Week posters
on my office store. So her plan, Megan's plan for
band Books Week is to read as many of them
as she can. The good barriages. Everyone could do the
(24:35):
same thing, and to eat the traditional band book week
Swedish meatballs. That's right, So cheers from South Texas from Megan,
and enjoy those band books and Swedish meatballs. Yeah. Thanks
A lot Megan, Thanks to everybody who celebrates Ban Books Week. Um,
if you have a suggestion for a ban book, your
favorite band book, we want to hear it. We'll tell
(24:55):
everybody about it. Let's just get talking about it, Okay, guys. UM,
you can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com. UH, you
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com, and you can visit our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
(25:19):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
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