Turning Your Leftovers Into Fuel
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- čas přidán 26. 04. 2015
- Even if you don't want to eat them, your apple cores still have plenty of energy left to give. SciShow explores how cities are capturing that energy and turning it into fuel. This episode was produced in collaboration with and sponsored by Emerson. www.emerson.com/ilovestem
Hosted by: Hank Green
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Sources:
www.renewableenergyworld.com/r...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10...
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I eat my apple cores, Hank. I convert them to gas on a personal level.
Marv Roberts Do you take out the seeds first? Apple seeds contain arsenic, so eating too many of them will kill you.
+Maximum Of Twenty, it's not arsenic, it's ricin in apple seeds, and there isn't enough in 300 of them to even make a difference. Like the guy above me said, you'd have to eat over 30g of them at one time before you should even think about that.
Marv Roberts I eat them too :D
TheTriforceCrusader Well. Arsenic is in apples in general. At least apple juice. But it's "within the safe amount" hur dur dur". There shouldn't really be a "safe amount" of arsenic.
Austin Garcia There's a safe amount of pure water you can drink, don't see why there wouldn't be a safe amount of anything else even if it is tiny.
My school just got a bio-digester which takes the dumped food from the cafetria and puts it into a bag. It turns into methane which is used to heat water and the liquid stuff left over is used for compost and doesnt produce co2 when being composted
+kofi ampomah i think its pretty awesome
No "Back to the Future Part 2" Mr. Fusion reference? Huge missed opportunity.
Thinking of exactly the same thing.
Me too. Can't believe there wasn't a quick pic and reference.
Ericisbadatgames The same thought ran through my head. No flying cars? No hover board? then at least give us mr.fusion.
Ericisbadatgames I clicked on the video just to make that comment ! 2fast4me
Ericisbadatgames That's exactly what I was waiting for!
So basically I am the answer to our fuel problem, well I'll be, but will I still be eaten?
Was this account created to make this comment?
Yup
apple fuel cant melt steel beams
Maybe not, but my new iLaser can.
***** so can thermite
SAS Seals imgur.com/gallery/y2J7uWO
SAS Seals So can highly concentrated stupidity when you add the catalyst of conspiracy.
seigeengine its obviously an inside job bro
Why make fuel from leftovers when you can recover 1/16 of your Hit Points every turn?
999MigasMovies lolz
999MigasMovies This nigga
What game is that from? It seems familiar, with "turn." Maybe Pokémon?
TheTriforceCrusader yeah. this actually is tempting me to get to playing it again lol
999MigasMovies YOU NEED MORE UPVOTES !!!
Everyone dumping food into the wastewater collection system can cause problems... They aren't really built to handle solids in the first place, it's hard enough with broken pipe, concrete and what have you that gets dumped in there already. Well solids that don't breakdown relatively quickly anyway. Plus you have to take into account the strain it would put on pump stations for cities/counties that don't strictly use gravitational force. Not only that but you would have to increase VCP capacity to make it self maintaining, could you imagine the SSO's. I see a lot of upgrades that will need to take place before we can just dump all food waste into the collection system. Getting it there is a lot harder then you think.
gtrmaster2000 Thanks for pointing this out. We are more and more frequently being told that the only thing that should go down the kitchen sink is water - with some soap. Garbage disposals grind products enough so that they may escape YOUR house and then clog a drain miles away.
Zeyev No problem, thanks for listening!
gtrmaster2000 I'm a plumber and have installed many types and sizes of drainage and sewer systems. I've also serviced these systems and others when they clog. This stuff is a cause of many failures in building drainage and municipal sewer systems. Even though we have big equipment for these types of jobs it still stinky hard work.
weedandwine I hear ya. I'm a Collection Systems Technician for our local Plant, working with combination Vactor trucks for hydro-jetting, balling, you name it. I've since transferred as a treatment plant operator but that work is hard. Especially if your trying to retrieve something in a 36" main.
The only question I have now is whether Hank is listening to us. We've all agreed that disposing of solid waste in a sink, even if it goes through a garbage disposal unit, is a bad idea. Will he correct himself in a future video?
Okay, okay, one thing that's always bugged me that I've never understood... in the US, you can really throw waste down the plug hole in the sink? Isn't that just for like... water?
sporkafife en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit
sporkafife most kitchen sink drains are equipped with a food processor, it basically grinds food waste so that it can go down the drain along with all the waste from your toilet into the sewers, I'm surprised you've never heard of them
TabletopGodhands Well, it is actually only used significantly in the US, and you don't really have any leads that suggests sporkafife lives there.
TabletopGodhands It's like other's version of the Bidet, you don't really grow up with it so when you learn of it it seems odd.
TabletopGodhands Is that very envioremental friendly though? having it go the same way as the water instead of seperating it to for example make compost?
I started doing something like that a home. Even using yard waste to produce what turns out to be E90 I run my yard equipment on. It takes about 2 weeks (sometimes more, winter takes longer). About 2 weeks of research and about $100 USD. Its paid for it self already.
"Where we're going, we don't need.... roads."
If you get the reference you get a cookie
Back to the Future
the topic of the episode was also the sponsors!!!
WHAT A TWIST!!!
A lot of big cities had separate trash _and_ garbage collection. Every evening you'd put the days garbage in a metal can behind the house to be collected weekly to feed pigs. That died out with packaged food and the garbage disposal. Only one major US city still collects garbage from restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, etc. for pig feed. My hometown, Philadelphia, PA.
Newcastle City Council, in the UK, runs three separate refuse collections. A weekly general waste (green wheelie bin) and a fortnightly recyclable waste (blue wheelie bin) alternating with a fortnightly garden waste (brown wheelie bin). _At least it used to be that frequency, probably less now - I'm at uni in Leeds most of the time. The brown bins do now require an annual subscription, like an optional council tax supplement._ I imagine other councils have similar services but I know some just do general waste. *What I was coming to is that they trialled a separate food waste collection a few years ago in some wards with miniature dark green bins and free biodegradable bags, but I'm guessing it didn't work out because it wasn't extended.*
I just wanted say that this is a great sponsorship! They sponsor you to produce a video about the stuff they are working on to get more interest and so this wasn't just an annoying ad at the beginning of the video, which tells us to buy x thing and was actually a good thing for the viewer (it improved the video quality). Hope to see more of this kind of sponsorships
Yeah, I actually quickly looked them up and Emerson are one of those engineering firms that don't have the glitz and glamour of NASA, Boeing, Siemens, Rolls Royce or General Electric, but they're quietly working to keep the world turning. That's exactly why they're sponsoring Scishow, as Hank said on Vlogbrothers awhile back
If I ever move to the U.S., I'm sure going to add Emerson to my list of people to submit a CV to once I graduate from my Engineering course
Finally, you guys talked about gasification! I've been fascinated by it for a long time, and while this was a fairly brief mention, it's still cool.
Put fart bags on all the cattle stock in the us and boom, energy to fuel the country for years.
If only... You'd have to trap (difficult), filter, compress, and transfer the gas.
Chad Eichhorn Shhh shh shh shh... Don't question it...
Most of the methane from cattle is in the form of burps, not farts, because they use foregut fermentation to break down cellulose.
Varys x Already doing it! www.fastcoexist.com/3028933/these-backpacks-for-cows-collect-their-fart-gas-and-store-it-for-energy
Marty! We need to go to the future!
Watching this I was reminded of that scene in Back to the Future when Doc is putting trash in the Delorean's reactor :) I think he puts an apple core in there. Or it might be a banana skin, I cant remember.
And this is why I became a chemical engineer: to use the world around us to create energy, via chemical reactions. Great episode!
i literally said out loud while watching this episode "there's no way this city would do anything like this!"...and then he said Edmonton, Alberta lmao
I built an Anaerobic digestion container once and used it to make methane gas at home as an experiment but went on holiday and the bacteria digested in the container died and stopped producing the gas due to me not feeding it every day. I could not be bothered to re-start it again as it takes weeks to get your first yield of gas, but it did work though and I got rid of a fair bit of waste!
Jnan Mckenzie You can do it easily by almost the same way as making compost/fertilizerLook it up, but instead of keeping the container open to fresh air, seal it to deprive the bacteria inside of fertilizer. You will know it is working when it smells bad (it is sulfur, which is the main chemical in gas waste of a human)
ThaMinecraftNetwork would just like to point out that while yes methane is a main component of human waste gas, its the sulur compounds in our farts that make them smell bad. Methane by itself is colourless and odorless.
Jnan Mckenzie
I have some videos of it on my channel. You can also google it for all the information you need, there is a lot of science behind it and is a fun project to do. You can make your digester in many different ways and sizes. Give it a go and make your own fuel! Good luck, let us know how you get on.
SiirEgg My fault, it has been fixed :)
Oh god I was craving an apple so much today and you reminded me of that delicious apple.
chaquator Are you allergic to apples or something?
Matthew Mitchell
No I was remembering the delicious apple I ate.
Are you allergic to cyanide?
It was the way you said craving, as if you wanted one but couldn't have it.
Matthew Mitchell
Well I wasn't near one for the whole day
The hand motions, they're... they're... [tears up].....perfect.
I just realised, Back to the future predicted this too!
I worked on a proposal to install a CNG gas cleaner in our local landfill just last year. It's amazing how much energy you can get out of stuff we threw in the garbage.
In Umeå, Sweden, we take the food waste and put it in a special bag. Then the city takes the food waste and turns it into fuel to power the city buses. Thats why they are free
I love the fact that you guys are so efficient with your recycling and waste-to-energy programme, you're now importing rubbish from Norway to generate power. I'm not sure if you're paying them for rubbish, or they're paying you but it's awesome either way
Britain's been a bit slower on the Waste-to-Energy uptake, but we're getting there
Axel Karlsson-Smythe Hej, Umeå! With a name like Karlsson-Smythe, you'd make a great supervillain. Also, what's it like in Umeå? I might come live there if these st00pid politicians ruin Finland.
Thanks! This is great revision for GCSE Biology unit 3! :)
Here in Stockholm Sweden, where I live, they started collecting all of our food left overs, and then turning them into fuel for the citys buses, and some taxi companies last spring. I got a waste bin and green bags from the landlord, then just despose of it with the rest of my rubbish. It gets sorted by machines at the plant by their bright green colour.
This has been big in Sweden for at least five years, AWESOME! :D
Stuff like this is so cool!
I can see a future where cemetery space is solved and our bodies become fuel.
One of my favorite youtube channels you guys are so supercagafragalisticexpialidotiosly awsome i cant even spell that correctly
Just thought I'd take a second to mention how good your hair looks in this Hank(:
Car Tires work really well to make Syngas
30 years later "I think we should of done something before the earth exploded"
Buffy the vampire slayer!
While not incredibly efficient, I thought it good to note that one of the major benefits that digesters bring is that they are fairly low in energy costs. So much so, that many modern digesters are powered near entirely through the methane that they themselves produce. So while not all that effective in producing energy (though optimization and pretreatment can definitely make it better), this is at least a good means to treat the waste in the first place.
That feeling when scission covers a topic you are doing experimental research in.
We've had to separate our organics at home for years.
That's exactly what I study at university.
As someone who stayed up late last night binge-watching season 4 BTVS.. I am unnerved.
I thought this was gonna be like the feul for the flying car in Back to the Future 2 ... I wanna run my car off banana peel!
OR you can compost your food waste with worms. Which in turn, fertilize your garden.
Nerfin Merfitt just like I did with my neighbor....garbage.... yeah...
So nobody grows their own produce or what? Hah. It's pretty simple but yeah it's not made for all types of garbage. Look it up.
Nerfin Merfitt growing produce is not as good as just buying produce
Cyndasaur cause they give you free plastic bags?
Joseph Fox No, because they give you food immediately and without having to wait a year for the produce to grow, drop hundreds of dollars and fertilizer and water, only to possibly lose your harvest due to unforseen consequences.
QQ: what's the deal with changing taste buds as you get older? I've always wondered about that. :)
That felling when you live in a country who is so efficient on garbage disposal that they have to import garage.
I usually eat the apple cores as well... except for the seeds.
A power plant that is next to me uses the methane from the land field to supply the power during peak times. It uses 3 turbine jet engines as a generator.
My city has food recycling but I agree, it's hard to get everyone on board to separating food waste from containers. Especially since other garbage collection only comes once every two weeks. Can you explain how plastic to oil work next? I heard some friends discussing it after we watched this video and I admit it's all over my head. SciShow
Mr. Fusion! We're so close
If I were to shove an apple core down my drain then I'd have to call a plumber to get that shit back out...
Ha ha in this country grabbing an apple 🍎 for a late night snack is very unlikely.
Doc, are you telling me you built a time machine, out of a delorian??
One caveat to this video, not all wastewater treatment plants have anaerobic digestors, at least in the U.S. So it's not necessarily the case that putting food through a garbage disposal is going to translate into fewer greenhouse gas emissions. But if you live in a city or metropolitan area with a population larger than ~100,000, your wastewater is probably going through an anaerobic digester.
If I'm binge watching buffy I'm going to be watching season 3.
Always thought about making our waste into fuel ever since I saw Back To The Future. :)
How do I do this at home tho?
I'll just give mine to Snorlax
I worked for Evergreen recycling in Edmonton Alberta!!!!
Please do a video about "Why is yawning contagious"
the only thing i got from this video is that back to the future got the mr. fusion right. put food waste in, get fuel out. :D
I love to eat apple cores.
I couldn't stop staring at his hair and comparing it to his glasses
How long would it take to invent a mr fusion to make 1.21 gigawatts for my flux compensator?
Mr. Fusion is about to exist?
Am i the only one who don't leave anything of the apple when i am done with it? Like i eat EVERYTHING.
You eat the middle part as well?? Doesn't that taste awful?
Esra Taha Everything except the wooden thing that connects it to the trees. Seeds are a bit bitter but i dont mind.
I don't know Hank, it might actually be because I'm binge watching Buffy.
Nice to see Alberta being recognized for some some positive environmental work and not just villainized for the oil sands.
Small question but Why do people leave the core? I mean when you use the apple slicer where does the core go? Ever thought about that.
Anthony Morado try eating it, you'll see why
oh and also, apple seeds contains a tiny bit of cyanide, not enough to harm you, but still
Jp Cam I did and I liked it. Been doing it for 20 years. I really like apples and don't like mess.
Jp Cam I wouldn't worry about apple seeds one bit, you'd need at least a big bowl full to even notice
Anthony Morado Apple cores might be a bit harder to eat, but they'e still apple.
You also get to look a plumbers crack while you're writing him a check for the snake job he did on your drain to remove that food stuff.
Ah Edmonton. And I thought we were just well known for our mall!
Fun fact: Edmonton, Alberta (pop. ~1M) has some of the best waste management in the world, with only 10% of the cities garbage ending up in a landfill.
Those tanks you mentioned, don't they have something called negative buoyancy? Could you explain that, surely that means it is less dense than air but then why wouldn't it just float away.
I may be thinking of some different tanks but I'd still like it explaining.
Hank's pocket distracted me!!!
Sweden has been using food waste for creating biofuel for as long as i can remember, I'm quite young tho. But still it's a national program to collect food that wasn't eaten and turn in into bio fuel. Which the state then uses to run public transportation... In my opinion a pretty good idea.
How does this compare to composting?
Is there a better cost/benefit ratio to using food scraps for energy, compared to use it for compost?
I've not seen any comparisons.
peacefrog3 I'm pretty sure Hank said that it uses food scraps that can't be used for composting, so it's not an alternative process but an additional one.
TabletopGodhands No, they are food scraps that could have otherwise been used for composting. Apple cores, for example.
Meg Ashley my bad, I was referring to the gassification plant at 3:15 that uses non-recyclable and non-compostable waste, but yeah, the processes that generate methane and alcohol use food scraps
You grap an apple for a quick snack pffff I will grap that box of Oreos
Inaccurate-no one binges the fourth season of Buffy.
What ever happened to Thermal Depolymerization? It seemed like a perfect solution to all these "convert biomass to fuel" problems - and a company called Changing World Technologies even had two full-scale plants at one point, one processing municipal waste in Philadelphia, and another turkey offal in Carthage, MO. But you never hear about it.
SciShow it would be great if you could do a video on this...
Hey scishow I was holding up my arm and it cracked I think this would be a great video on why arm bones crack and can you email me if or when you do the video thanks.
Let's go back...To the future!
I see what you're doing here. Clever. Also, why did I think CNG was the same as LPG before this?
Um mister green, what if I don't have a garbage disposal?
When I saw the title I thought they were showing that the fusion energy from back to the future 2 was real and that we could start to get them on our cars
ESPECIALLY after chili night😃
Is the syngas also called water gas
Hank for president.
Drill baby drill!
What are our thumbs? I mean our thumbs only have 2 joints while our other fingers have 3 joints? I have always been looking at it weardly and it's bothered me? Also what are double joints? I have it on my pinky but it is so weird! Please answer this!!!! I bet a lot of people wonder this. BTW I love your CZcams channel keep it up ♡
Shoutout Edmonton!
Landfills aren't all bad. Where I live, the methane released by landfills is captured and converted into power or just sold outright. SciShow should probably do an episode on these.
While landfill gas is brilliant, not everyone does those projects, and also it's much more efficient both space and probably energy-wise to skip the "bury it in the landfill" step and concert it to energy directly
Still, you are right in that I'd love to see SciShow cover Landfill Gas Projects. They are fascinating
seporokey Landfill methane capture systems don't capture all the methane. Capture rates vary depending upon the landfill's design, etc., but a typical capture rate is only 50%. Better than nothing, but still a reason to try and avoid unnecessarily sending organic material to the landfill.
Marty, your kid is in danger!
Eyy! I live in Edmonton!
Mr. Fusion.
Does anybody understand the science of Viktor Shauberger and Walter Russell?
The vortex realm( the digester) reminded me of them.
You look good like that Henk, I like the haircut!
Wow Edmonton actually did something go home city
At 1:40 the reactor is open to the air, so it's unlikely a true anaerobic digester since they need to be sealed from the air to be truly anaerobic (otherwise the methane is released into the air and causes global warming). Good video though!
I feel like food waste isn't something that should be harnessed, its something that should be solved.
I'm surprised that I almost never hear about gasification as a renewable energy source. I remember hearing about it about years ago and I have since been somewhat following the technology. There have been several plants built worldwide using gasification, but so far I haven't seen any real reports on the success of the technology. I'd like to see some information on how well these plants have performed and how they have worked out economically.
Can you please !make a video about green house gasses in the atmosphere