[Gazzatrone]

Peak Oil, a serious topic indeed and hence many of the posts on peakoil.com pay testament to that fact. Without question Peak Oil offers the World a vision of such catastrophic proportions that there seems no way to fully explain or comprehend it.

Powering our needs when the oil is gone poses a serious dilemma for Mankind. For when it comes to Energy nothing compares to the diversity of application found in Oil.

It powers everything we do, and replacing this power source ids proving without doubt one of Man's toughest challenges. From heating fuel to plastics, medicines and fertilisers, Oil touches everything a nd seemingly becoming irreplaceble as we depend on it even more. If oil did just this then we could find a way out. But it is the simple act of getting around and powering that established trasnport that is causing the biggest headache.

To combat or at least stem the tide, many ideas are put forward and taken seriously, a classic example of this is the Hydrogen Economy. Seen by many as the future power. As a bridging fuel, we have Biofuel. On paper a good idea. In practice evidently ridiculously fuel inefficient.

Renewables such as solar, wind and tidal forces are seen as contributors, and look at preset to be out best solution to replenishing electrical energy at least.

Using ideas based in science, we scurry around looking for what are seemingly plausible sources of energy. So desperate have we become, Helium 3 on the Moon is a possiblity.

And it got me thinking. If respected scientists can come up with such ludicrous schemes to power the people, what if such left field thinking from the people could provide sane possibilities.

To start the ball rolling my suggestion is........

LIPOSUCTION

In all seriousness, expelled Human Fat, a good source of "stored energy" could be refined and utilised to power the needs into Mankinds future. We literally power ourselves from ourselves.

Bearing in mind that obesity is rife within the Western World, harnessing the power of the paunch could be one of the ways in which Mankind can not only power itself but solve one of its social problems.

Yes a random idea. But for now there's not much else that is going to save us.

This was my thought and I wondered if anyone else had had such out of the box ideas as to appear ludicrous but with concencus could prove the saviour of Mankind.

Please feel free to post your suggestions

[Spartan2]

Static bicycles with electric generators connected to the grid. That way you could exercise your muscles and at the same time make money selling power to the grid.

[Don35]

Why not turn every sewage plant into a methane plant? Would it be cost effective? Share some thoughts.

[WisJim]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Don35', 'W')hy not turn every sewage plant into a methane plant? Would it be cost effective? Share some thoughts.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gazzatrone', '
')LIPOSUCTION

[Gazzatrone]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Spartan2', 'S')tatic bicycles with electric generators connected to the grid. That way you could exercise your muscles and at the same time make money selling power to the grid.

[OZ_DOC]

What on earth makes you think that we need lipsuction to harness the energy of millions upon millions of excess pounds of fat.

Its called walking and riding to where your going anyway, uses that abundant resource way more efficiently than the two days that energyunlimited is talking about. The other great thing about it is that unlike oil usage that only increases over time, as the population loses wait the amount of energy expended for them to move themselves will show noticeable declines. I also fully agree with those talking about electric ASSIST bikes, these things are wonderful they scale the assist so that you get more help when you need it most, riding up a hill often feels no different than riding along the flat.

I think the best thing we could do to show the ridiculous wastage of energy we currently reside over is to have a government enforced day where every person has to attempt to go about there normal business but rather than the cars and buses and trucks pulling them around they have to pull their cars and trucks around. The proposterous mass of metal we drag around with cheap oil everyday just to get our relatively skinny asses around is stupid.

[lorenzo]

This idea is baked:

Liposuction Biodiesel - Suck your fuel out of chubby people
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Liposuct ... 1150355849

Liposuction yields 1 liter of biofuel for a powerboat
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]It Really Hauls Ass

Saving the planet can be a real pain in the butt. Just ask Peter Bethune, who's powering his speedboat with biodiesel made of fat from his backside. In May, the 41-year-old New Zealander embarks on a voyage to promote the use of renewable fuels and to break the record for circumnavigating the globe. (Bethune hopes to finish in 65 days - 10 days faster than the current speedboat record.) His eco-friendly vessel, Earthrace, is a wave-piercing 78-foot trimaran capable of hitting 45 knots (58 mph). Of course, nobody's butt is big enough to sustain a 27,600-mile journey. Bethune's contribution amounts to only a liter of fuel; the rest comes from vegetable oils and other animal fats. Besides, liposuction hurts. "I was bruised all over," he says. "It was a personal sacrifice."

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'O')n the other hand, many other animal fats are already being used; cattle, chicken and even catfish fat:
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/techno ... power.html
So human fat is not special in any way.


The problem with liposuction biodiesel is its limited potential.
Only in really fat nations like the USA does it make sense.

In the US, around 480,000 liposuctions were carried out in 2005. The average yield is between 2 and 6 liters of fat. Given that the human fat that is sucked away most often (belly and hip) has a relatively high free fatty acid content, production costs of the lipo-diesel would be relatively high. You could get about 100 militer of biodiesel out of 1 liter of liposuction blubber.

But back to the potential: 480,000 times an average of 4 liters of liposuction fat, times 0.1 = 192,000 liters (50,720 gallons) per year.

Barely worth the effort.

(35 oil palm trees will do the same job.)

[Anjorni]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gazzatrone', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Spartan2', 'S')tatic bicycles with electric generators connected to the grid. That way you could exercise your muscles and at the same time make money selling power to the grid.