Story du Jour
microreactors make biodiesel on the fly...
This creditcard-sized microreactor, invented by OSU's Goran Jovanovic, will one day be making biodiesel as easily as milking a cow. In the world of Biodiesel, they have taken portability, speed, and efficiency to a new zenith. Like going from the ENIAC to an AlienWare. And it being EarthDay/Week/Month (really what day of the year isn't Earth day??), and what with Eco-info being the hot info of the moment (hopefully something that can sustain), and everybody* having a love-in with BioDiesel, you can see why this story, which actually broke a week ago in Oregon, has been spreading like wildfire lately.
I *asterixed "everybody loves biodiesel" up there because that's a little over the top, not "everybody loves biodiesel" (and I'm not even talking about Lee "What's for Dessert" Raymond here), we think it's clean. And if we make the biodiesel out of a new crop, like hemp grown on the side of highways, it can cycle it's carbon. But the reality is that BioDiesel emits carbon dioxide just like regular-unleaded, or nonbiodiesel. It also emits Nitrous Oxide (and that's no laughing matter. well it is, it's a gas really, but not when emmitted into the atmosphere). There's other particulates it emits. Its cleaner than DinoDiesel, that's for sure, but panacea? Nyet. I guess in some ways, it's the best that we can get at the moment. I mean you can convert a car to 100% electric and use it as a city car only. But for the open road, unless you wanna be a wayhardcore rebel and DIY maniac (and take your sweet time electrolyzing on the road), this is it.
And in that respect these microreactors are pretty cool. Also cool is the whole concept. Each card only processes a small amount of BioDiesel. But you can stack them so you would have something the size of a PC tower with thousands of them and that way, one can process a substantial amount of veggie-fuel! Dr. Jovanovic says that in the future we will be using these micro reactors for a variety of different purposes, so expect to be seeing a lot more of these gold cards around in the future. The good clean positive evolved future!
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scalarparty) wrote,
