I'll bet that engine just purrs along...

[VulcanRider]

Inventor turns dead cats into diesel

A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats. Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers. They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter. He said the resulting "high quality bio-diesel" costs just 15 pence per litre. Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank. He said: "I tank my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems." Annelise Krauss of the Dresden Animal Protection Association blasted Koch's new diesel though, saying: "This is as bad as experimenting on animals."

And if he gets it to work using bigger cadavers, the term "horsepower" could take on a whole new meaning...

[Ilander]

Roughly mathematically speaking, driving 105,000 miles will require about 4,000 dead cats.

[Hivetyrant]

Oh.....My....God.....
That is most definantly the coolest and funniest thing I have heard all month (I probably didnt hear anything cooler last month, but im not sure....)

Jeez, I had better start investing in dead cats.....

[sageridder]

This has been around for a few years,do a google for "Thermal Depolymerization".There is suppost be two plants in the U.S. doing this, one getting it's material from a butterball turkey plant in the midwest somewhere.

[Sir Goulum]

Well, this is... er... different. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

Saw this in the news for the first time today, and saw the retraction as well. The original inventor never said he used dead cats... an overzealous journalist tossed that in. I'm too lazy and tired to hunt up a legit news source right now, but if you don't believe me, go looking for one... perhaps in Yahoo's news of the weird.

[mad=dog]

Dead cats? Do people believe anything these days? As far as I know the most feasible biodiesel is rapeseed biodiesel. Both economically, ecologically and technically. It is still cheaper to use fossil fuels though. Don't know for how long. They ought to be subjected to lower taxes since they are per definition carbondioxide neutral.

edit: rape seed = rapeseed for those who wish to Google.

[ 09-16-2005, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: mad=dog ]

[Sever]

What a strange approach to the ever present fuel issue.

*wonders what choc thinks of all this*

[burnzey boi]

Hahaha. I would hope hydrogen, as it will clean the air better, and give more moisture to the air. Dead cats will smell like.. dead cats and what in my opinion will smell horrible..