Living The Carbon Credulous Lifestyle
In what is being promoted as a "carbon negative" trip, two Britons are traveling from Britain to Mali using a vehicle fueled with a biofuel derived from waste chocolate products.
London - While others eat their way through advent calendars this Christmas season, two Britons are doing something quite different with their chocolate: using it to drive across the Sahara.
More precisely, Andy Pag and John Grimshaw are fueling a 4,473-mile journey from Poole, England, to Timbuktu, Mali, using 3 tons of discarded chocolate converted into 396 gallons of fuel.
While the expedition might sound like an attempt at making the Guinness World Records, it's actually aimed at showing off greener alternatives to fossil fuels and even biofuels like ethanol. And they claim the trip will be the world's first carbon-negative voyage.
"That means that we will actually be saving emissions that would be in the atmosphere if we'd stayed at home," says Mr. Pag, whose "BioTruck" carries with it two large plastic vats of the chocolate-turned-fuel.
According to CarbonAided, the independent company that is evaluating the trip's carbon footprint, or lack thereof, they will be able to save 15 tons of emissions thanks to a combination of techniques.
As well as emitting fewer greenhouse gases, biodiesel burns more efficiently and so releases fewer harmful pollutants than conventional diesel.
Well, since NOX formation is tied directly to burn temperature, I question that claim. I also question the evaluation unless it completely accounts for everything that went into making the raw material for the biofuel. The implied storyline here amounts to nothing more than a claim of a perpetual motion machine. One of the people involved in this makes this rather ridiculous claim at the end of the article:
But Elvey at Ecotec remains positive. "I am a firm believer that we can be self-sustaining because of the amount of rubbish we produce."
To believe that there is more - or even close to - an equal amount of energy left over in rubbish after the goods are consumed shows an appalling lack of understanding of basic laws of the physical world. Energy conversions run at about a 30% efficiency at best.
Energy, Environment, World news | Gaius Saturday, 22 December , 2007
By Mwalimu Daudi, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 12:55 am
Turning chocolate into fuel? That seems so … blasphemous.
By NortonPete, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 5:52 am
This article states that it would not be carbon negative if not for the fact it was using items that would be discarded and rot in a landfill.
It mentions “misshapen Easter eggs and bars” being the fuel, but the logic is all wrong. Improve the production of chocolate eggs so you don’t throw so many out. Or better yet stop buying chocolate eggs because of the waste.
I read a study as to how much CO2 is produced each day by a human’s exhaled breath. It was alot higher than you might think. Maybe they could really be carbon negative if they just put a …….nope I better not say it, because some planet freak will do it and I’ll be to blame.
By Quilly Mammoth, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 6:47 am
So it violates the entire Law of Thermodynamics….well, so does Santa Claus! Now what do you have to say?
By Gaius, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 7:38 am
No, Santa doesn’t - he just has a really large carbon footprint. One that is almost a quarter the size of Al Gore’s.
By feeblemind, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 9:00 am
Hush Gaius, or else they will all be advocating we transport ourselves in sleighs powered by 8 tiny reindeer. All to lessen the carbon footprint. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume everything these guys claim is true. There is so little of this type of resource available, the impact would be insignificant. The whole effort strikes me as quixotic. Tilting at windmills.
By Sam L., Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 9:08 am
I really like people who can lift themselves with their own bootstraps.
By martian, Saturday, 22 December , 2007 @ 2:50 pm
This isn’t new. My wife has been fueled by chocolate for years!