[advancedatheist]

I can't believe the thermodynamic ignorance out there. How many calories of fossil fuels energy does it take to produce one calorie's worth of rendered animal fat any way -- 50? 100? even more?

Oil Companies Hope Grease Is the Word for Fuel
Scientists Are Turning to Fat As Renewable Energy Source;
Tapping Pizza, Taco Residue
By JEFFREY BALL
June 25, 2007; Page B1

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ULSA, Okla. -- Here in the heart of the oil patch, laboratory technician Christine King is surrounded these days by containers of what her employer hopes will become the next big thing in energy: grease and fat.

There's used cooking oil, in various shades of yellow. There's chicken fat, a dark-brown goo with a scent that evokes dog food. "Here's one that smells really bad," Ms. King says, reaching for a jar and opening the lid. Inside: taco-and-pizza grease.

The small lab is in an industrial building that serves as the headquarters of Syntroleum Corp. For two decades, the people behind the tiny company have tried in vain to turn a profit by making liquid transportation fuel out of natural gas. Last summer, frustrated by its lack of progress reinventing fossil fuel, Syntroleum began shifting to what it saw as a greener pasture: making fuel from the renewable resource known as fat.

[joewp]

Soylent gasoline.

Since 1995, genetically modified corn and soy has been continually added to the US consumers' diets, resulting in the obesity epidemic of the last 5-10 years. This is just a way to recycle that energy into something usable when the extra-large suicide booths open.

[dissident]

It isn't the GM corn and soy of the last 10 years. The type 2 diabetes and associated obesity epidemic started in the late 1970s after the low fat hysteria triumphed and fat in processed foods was replaced with corn starch. Of course, junk food consumption has increased in the last 30 years which has compounded the problem. Type 2 diabetes is showing up in teenagers, something extremely rare in the past. Since eating habits of teenagers are not undergoing some sort of bizarre historical excess, it is the chemical composition of the food that they eat that is at fault.

[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('advancedatheist', 'I') can't believe the thermodynamic ignorance out there. How many calories of fossil fuels energy does it take to produce one calorie's worth of rendered animal fat any way -- 50? 100? even more?

[Eli]

Sorry Joe it ain't Gm soybeans that made Americans fat. It is because a bloomin onion at OutBack has nearly 3000 calories in it. And because a piece of carrot cake at the CheeseCake Factory has 1500 calories.

[joewp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'S')orry Joe it ain't Gm soybeans that made Americans fat. It is because a bloomin onion at OutBack has nearly 3000 calories in it. And because a piece of carrot cake at the CheeseCake Factory has 1500 calories.

[advancedatheist]

I wonder if this children's crusade of a project has something to do with the U.S. Air Force's effort to find substitutes for jet fuel in emergencies.

[IanC]

The recent book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" opens with a very interesting section on corn in our diet. We are amazingly efficient at growing corn thanks to fossil fuels and genetic engineering. We produce such an amazing surplus that we need to find new ways for it to be consumed. This is why there is so much high fructose corn syrup in our diet and why we feed corn to cattle and other livestock - something totally against their natural eating behavior.

The result has been a permeation of our food supply of all things corn. Nearly everything is linked to this vast corn surplus. The obesity epidemic from supersizing our food portions is part of the result.

Perhaps someday we will see all of these morbidly obese people as a biofuel resource. Truly the US will be considered well endowed. We will join Scotland and the Polynesia and form OLEC (Organization of Lipid Exporting Countries) and fuel the bright new future of our planet based on the harvesting of energy from cheetos, corn fed beef, and high fructose soda pop.

-IanC

[nocar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')erhaps someday we will see all of these morbidly obese people as a biofuel resource. Truly the US will be considered well endowed. We will join Scotland and the Polynesia and form OLEC (Organization of Lipid