Autopia
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '')Urea is the same stuff we use to fertilize our flower beds. It’s a solid that dissolves in water and is therefore easy to move,” Botte told Wired.com. “An electrolyzer built into a car would eliminate the need for a hydrogen storage tank, and with the right partnership, I believe we could have pee-powered cars capable of 60 miles per gallon on the road within a year.”
PeakOil is You
Power Your Car With Pee
First unread post • 6 posts
• Page 1 of 1
Power Your Car With Pee
by Carlhole » Sat 18 Jul 2009, 10:00:00
Well, I don't know about that... I suppose I'd like to see a pee-powered Honda 50 endurance race between competing teams, done in a reality-show style. That would be entertaining - "I want Martha off the team; her pee is too clean, and she don't make that much of it!"
Using renewables to create ammonia is one of Matt Simmons favorite ideas. But he wasn't talking about using piss. Pee Power MUST be possible to some degree which could be calculated but it's silly to suggest the notion of powering CARS with it.
Still, a hypothetical Doom community would probably utilize everyone's collective contributions of urea. The article should have included some chemistry.
- Carlhole
Re: Power Your Car With Pee
by smallpoxgirl » Sat 18 Jul 2009, 13:15:24
And you thought car exhaust smells bad now. ![[smilie=eusa_sick.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/eusa_sick.gif "eusa_sick")
"We were standing on the edges
Of a thousand burning bridges
Sifting through the ashes every day
What we thought would never end
Now is nothing more than a memory
The way things were before
I lost my way" - OCMS
Of a thousand burning bridges
Sifting through the ashes every day
What we thought would never end
Now is nothing more than a memory
The way things were before
I lost my way" - OCMS
-
smallpoxgirl - Expert
- Posts: 7258
- Joined: Mon 08 Nov 2004, 04:00:00
Re: Power Your Car With Pee
by Gerben » Sun 19 Jul 2009, 01:23:44
I like it and there's bound to be some application for it (powering your laptop while camping in the wild). But
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')er electrolyzer uses a nickel-based electrode to extract hydrogen from urea (NH2)2CO, the main component in urine.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')er electrolyzer uses a nickel-based electrode to extract hydrogen from urea (NH2)2CO, the main component in urine.
The main component in urine is ... water. 1 liter contains approx. 20 grams of urea. So that's approximately 2% by weight.
Urea has a molar weight of 60. With 4 hydrogen atoms, the weight of the hydrogen in urea is ~7% (asuming you can extract all of it).
So for 1 kg hydrogen (a hydrogen car often contains about 5 kg) you need about 700 liters of urine. A full tank would contain 3.700 liters of urine (~1,000 gallons).
You'll need to concentrate the pee if you want to carry it around. Or even produce the hydrogen in a central facility and sell it to the public. All the pee of a big city is enough for one refueling station.
What you might see is factories using natural gas to make urea, store that in cars and then ehm. "The electrolyzer would have to pull energy from a power source like a battery in order to produce hydrogen for a fuel cell."
I'd like to know the power ratio here: how much of the power you can obtain from hydrogen is wasted extracting it from urea?
Anyway: the advantage of urea is that it has a 15,000 times higher density than hydrogen. The energy density however is still less than that of gasoline.
Ureum can be produced using (lots of) sustainable energy. As long as we are using natural gas to make ureum it's cheaper and more efficient to power the car using a battery or CNG. (A thing that can also be said for hydrogen btw.)
-
Gerben - Tar Sands
- Posts: 629
- Joined: Wed 07 Mar 2007, 04:00:00
- Location: Holland, Belgica Foederata (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands)
Re: Power Your Car With Pee
by templar » Fri 31 Jul 2009, 17:50:39
It puts a smile on my face to think I could drink a lot of beer at night and fill my car up in the morning. 
- templar
- Wood
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri 31 Jul 2009, 17:22:57
Re: Power Your Car With Pee
by Keith_McClary » Wed 15 Jan 2014, 15:19:40
Facebook knows you're a dog.
-
Keith_McClary - Light Sweet Crude
- Posts: 7344
- Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
- Location: Suburban tar sands
6 posts
• Page 1 of 1
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest