Turning Trash Into Fuel
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
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To answer a few questions about syngas fermentation. An energy balance on the whole process shows that you can get more energy out of it than you have to put into it. That energy comes from the trash. Does this reduce total CO2? Well kind of. It replaces gasoline with ethanol. This ethanol was made from landfills. In the landfill the trash would break down on its own over time and send methane and co2 in the air. So either way the trash is going to send greenhouse gasses into the air. So if we use it as fuel and then send the gasses into the atmosphere it replaces the equivalent amount of gasoline emissions that were replaced by the ethanol. But only by a small fraction that would have become greenhouse gasses due to natural breakdown of the garbage.
Another benefit I didn’t mention is that there is a demand for ethanol. Most ethanol is made from food sources like corn. So we are using food as fuel which can cause food crises in developing nations. So syngas fermentation can help reduce the demand to use food as fuel.
But it doesn’t work well right now. It’s really hard to quickly dissolve the gasses into the liquid. That is what my research was focused on. I used hollow fiber reactors to dissolve the gasses into the liquid and measured mass transfer coefficients.
but we could also burn it in an enclosed room so the co² and other emissions can't escape. I think the power plant with the ski-roof is doing it like that (they use a carbon catcher idk how it works though)
@@JuliusUnique there are approaches to sucking out the CO2 from power plants and depositing them in rocks. That will reduce the amount in the atmosphere as long as you don’t put out CO2 in the process.
You would have to get people to properly separate their trash in the first place to make this an efficient process. That would require improvement in societal mentalities.
@@westonding8953 I know, did you know there are also plants that get rid of the co2 completely? not sure if they use a chemical or physical process but somehow they change the molecule so it isn't co2 anymore
@@westonding8953 here in germany we already separate the trash for decades, but I think that's the wrong approach, there must be businesses that do this for u
Check out the work of this scientist named, Dr. Emmet Brown. He's been pioneering this field since the 80's. He managed to create an engine capable of driving up to 88mph and generate 1.21GW of power. Heavy stuff.
As soon as I saw the thumbnail the first thing I looked for was a BTTF reference.
Still hilarious they used GW.
Heavy? There's that word again. Does the earth's gravitational pull have something to do with it?
The Mr. Fusion needs some garbage for fuel.
@@mrtonyvillagomezIf you are trying to correct someone, at least write Earth with capital E
Garbage was useless until he dropped the video 😂
Garbage has never been useless.
Turning trash into fuel isn't going to solve any problems, nonetheless it's going to save the planet, having more fuel in our vehicles so we use it for all kinds of useless stuff is going to produce more co2 , gas or garbage fuel.
Yup that’s will be works lol
Germany used this in wwII by gasifying wood
@@jakeostler6110 They were so keen on gasifying stuff right
@@Thomas-wh4ox 💀
Have you calculated all the energy that has to go into a process like that? I wonder if it just moves the problem,vs solves it.
Exactly. Plus trash is now a CO2 buffer in this regard.
@@lucbloom do you mean that any process to recover energy from the trash, will release even more co2 anyways?
@@JoinUsInVR At the end of the day this process is not necessarily helping reduce CO2 emissions as we're using the trash as fuel which turns it into CO2 when it's burned anyway but it does help shift our reliance on mining fossil fuels which I think is a step forward
Yesterday's trash is tomorrow's resources.
tomorrow's trash was yesterday's resources ;)
One mans trash is another man's fuel.
Resourcefulness!
A major issue on that topic is the vast quantity of solar panels that will reach the end of their life in the next decade or two. If I were 20, I'd set up a business to solve that.
@@CalvinsWorldNews if I were rich like elon musk, I would solve our planets problems first, instead of space problems. because humans are here for a short time. no one's gonna live forever neither humanity. at some point everything has to come to a point, like a reverse of big bang.
Great Scott! This is amazing! I am looking forward to use this!
It's a solution for excess trash, but it would be expensive and likely power intensive. To have an impact the energy would need to be sourced from a green source. You then need to deal with the carbon bi-product which would be huge at scale.
Finally it needs to be more energy efficient than using the conversion energy to just power the device you're planning on making fuel for.
The fact that a comment mentioning Doc Brown has more likes than a comment from the man himself is peak internet
Hey, doc! How are you these days? Still traveling much?
I used this idea in my 10th grade to a research project competition but judges didn't accept my project 😭😭😭
thats brutal
Who won? The kid who grew mold on some bread...
Don't let this hold you back. I'm currently in 10th grade as well. Maybe the judges are the right people to judge the average school kid , but they probably can't judge your complex project. Anyways, keep going, don't let them stop you👍👍
Probably because back then the judges were being reasonable and realistic and quickly came to the conclusion the idea sucks.
the judges probably just didnt want you to be killed
The issue here is the all in energy input is way higher than the output. Plus the toxins produced
No, the issue is that the premise is crap
- In the 80s they said that by the 21st century we'd see wild temperatures increases
- In the 90s they said by 2010 it wouldn't snow in Europe
- In 2000 they said that by 2020 (then decades away) the polar ice would be gone and Mauritius would be under water
None of it ever happens, but "the science is settled" and then they changed "global warming" to "climate change" so that literally any change whatsoever goes in the evidence pile.
I like this channel but sorry, the global warming BS is a load of crap. After half a century of lies, I'm out.
Welllll toxins are produced anyway when it's just laying there for months under burning sun...
Well if net energy is lower of equal to the energy it takes to dispose and recycle the trash then i say it will be worth it.
I like how the guy with the gas pump just let's gas dribble out on the ground and his car
😂
That was absolutely what I noticed as well!
Doesn't seem like you like it
As Swifties know, “Shake shake shake shake shake shake shake. Shake it off, shake it off!”
This is amazing! I always dreamed of having a trash-fueled DeLorean
Can you get enough energy from trash to charge the flux capacitor?
@@wictimovgovonca320 have you even seen the movies?
@@norude That was future technology that used trash, back in the '80s it needed a lightning strike. Yes, I know the future has come and gone: but the technology never appeared. Neither did Fusion Industries, so the timeline has been broken.
We appreciate the experiments you do on this channel. They're beneficial, environment-wise.
I've heard of people using sewage in a similar matter (fermenting into a gas to power machinery).
What's the liquid you dissolve the gas into? Water? Does it allow for easy separation and collection of the ethanol?
Ultra resourcefulness! That’s the skill to emphasize!!
If we can burn garbage for energy while retaining the gas, game changer
Technology have been here for 3 decades 🤷🏼♂️
The Japanese have been doing this for years. Garbage trucks take kitchen and other biodegradable waste and convert them to methane which in turn is used to power the garbage trucks.
Gasification to Catalysts can make Methanol and/or DME *Directly* which is much simpler/more scaleable
*Granted don’t get me wrong, Hydrogen/Syngas or even Straight Up Electrically fed (Reverse Microbial Fuel Cells) Microbes have their place in the Power-to-X / RDF spaces, but i am unsure this is it.
Entrained Flow Gasification, and Supercritical Water Gasification are much better in my opinion.
(*May* need to used the simpler Fluidized Bed Gasification for some Refuse Derived Fuels (RDF), but even then, short of making Ash a bit more problematic it works fine)
(Edit: Typo Fix)
You, Steve Mould and Veritasium are my favorite science channels
Talk about producing natural gas from sewage water. That is another aspect to be considered. It is also an anaerobic fermentation process which produces Methane instead of just CO2. The byproduct sewage water is then used for agriculture.
It seems you need more energy to turn it into fuel than the energy you would get out of it.
The rubbish already has quite a lot of energy in it, so the energy you need to make it into a fuel comes from part of that energy (so the fuel has less energy than the rubbish originally had, but only moderately less, and it is in a form that engines can use).
Great scott lived in the future for at least 8 years
Finally someone saw the connection 😅
2:10 I'm starting to think there should be a special Nobel Prize for Mrs. Action Lab.
This man's gonna literally change the whole fckin world...
In my neck of the woods they collect the methane from the landfill and power a nearby factory
The problem is always getting more energy out than you put in...
The law of conservation of energy says you cannot get more energy than you put in, that's why I don't think this would work
GREAT SCOTT all you need now is a flux capacitor and 1.21 GW of power 😂
Sure you can, just drop it into the Mr Fusion
>Turning Trash Into Fuel
bruh my body has been doing this for decades...
still the best.... keep up the great work man...
It's not fuel, but you can get energy out of it without much pollution by burning it in plasma ovens. Easier, but, yes, not usable in a car. Sweden actually deals with 52% of it's trash this way, and it recycles 47% of the rest.
My favorite CZcamsr talking about my school😍❤ big love from Avenues' students.
That vacuum chamber is your best friend :)
I keep shoving banana peels in my gas tank and my mechanic keeps shaking his head....
this is great just be safe because people go missing after doing stuff like this
@02:09 -- too late.
You actually dont need liquid fuel. Both internal combustion engines and external combustion engines can run on fuel that is in gas form. Some people modify their cars so it runs on wood gas
You actually touched on a great answer. Plasma gasification. Anything except nuclear waste goes, makes syn gas and gem stones. Millions of tons of garbage can be converted to energy every year, all but eliminating landfills and using the trash for fuel. The technology has been out there for years.
2:07 In science it's never enough to just give a practical example of what to do, you must also sometimes do what must not be done, in order to learn or teach.
Still hilarious how that just blew up.
Question. Does it have to be a vacuum environment or just an oxygen free environment. For example can you use Argon or Nitrogen in this process
Not an expert but I believe yes. If a vacuum was required it would likely be impossible to do economically at large scale.
Yes, you can (and usually would) use an atmosphere at normal pressure but with no oxygen. He just used the vacuum chamber for convenience for the quick and dirty experiment.
Something straight out of Back To The Future.
Great Scott! This is amazing
And gives me an idea…
There’s a company called Fulcrum Bioenergy that does this. They are about to start building a bunch of refineries.
There's actually another form that used water under extreme pressure, heated to very high levels that breaks down any organic compounds into carbon, and even dissolves pfas, and the end result is basically coal and a liquid you can get natural gas out of.
It's like the matrix but for bacteria 😂
That's what plants are.
Hahahaha
The thumbnail is what i tell my teacher when in elementary school,when she ask"what do you think the future could be?"
Now you need a flux capacitor and a Delorian. 88mph...,.......
I probably missed something important because I don't understand how this could resolve climate change. I understand that the net energy result might be somewhat favorable, compared to a traditional incinerator, even though gasification is an energy-intensive process. However, burning one gallon of ethanol still produces 18.92 pounds of CO2, and that amount of CO2 should be on par with the amount of CO2 produced from incinerating the trash used to produce that gallon of ethanol.
2:12 oh my heck? that was a planned break
Damn this is like some futuristic thing from 2015 or something
I’ve been waiting for this since I saw the Double Dragon movie in the 90’s
Trash is being burned to make electricity, and we have to be careful burning it however .
Most important thermodynamic question -- what is the 'NET ENERGY YIELD' of this process?
Gasification requires high energy laser or similar heating method. And only a fraction of the gases will be converted to ethanol..
Ethanol itself is a low yield fuel.
Does the total output of energy of the process even gets high enough to add up to input energy?
It seems like the total input energy here is more than any net output from ethanol fuel you get in the end..
It's simply isn't an efficient method in my opinion.
This would be very effective and would remove a lot of water great idea!
Is there amylase that can break down paper into sugar that can be fermented into ethanol fuel for use in cars and motor bikes.
2:08 holy shift, what is happening here?
Safety first!
At least my trash will be collected ON TIME EVERY TIME!!!
How adequate would that fuel be for current car engines ?
10% in current fuel should work on most cars after 2004. But it'll be much more expensive than the current ethanol enhanced fuels.
You could get cars running on it with a dedicated tune, though i doubt people would pay that just to buy even more expensive fuel.
The bigger problem would likely be the power requirements to make the conversion - i imagine it'll be much more than using the same amount of power to directly power an electric vehicle. At any scale i doubt the power could be sourced greenly, so the carbon offset would be worse than paying a device separately, plus you're turning the trash into carbon gas too - which would be another big expense to cleanly deal with.
This could have been a decent study 30 years ago
Video quality made me refocus my eyes
I don't really understand the point of turning the CO and hydrogen into liquid fuel. I mean, I do... but why not just use the gas at the point of production? I guess it gets around hydrogen embrittlement of an engine, but I'd guess it is better to just have a power plant same place you do pyrolysis. You can even use waste heat from the power plant to preheat for pyrolysis, gaining a bit of efficiency.
Mr. Fusion, that's his name! That name again is Mr. Fusion!
wow, sir i am an indian boy of 15 years but your english is so good i can easily understand it infact an indian boy of 10 or 12 years can also understand your explanation as compared to school
Plastoline is the new gasoline
I need more context for that ethanol b-roll
I was wondering why James left that in there.
Move the houses underground. Turn house square footage into a garden.
wow way cool and too funny with the cookie sheet crashing and the fire starting, be careful
Trash isn't so trash anymore!
Yes gasification from trash to hydrogen to formulate Zyklon B would solve it
This would be Amazing to have! I hope it happens and soon
Columbus Ohio had a failed trash burning power plant. I think the trash was shredded first, then burned.
So you'd need energy to create the ethanol, then burning the ethanol would create water vapor and carbon dioxide, which are both greenhouse gases?
good concept...can you start it in locality?
We do the trash to energy thing here in the UK. Instead of using the gas/diesel/petrol to run a generator you can burn whatever you want in a giant steam engine (so general waste). That means using less of gas/diesel/petrol for energy generation that you can use in a car or whatever. You need no further chemicals or anything.
for plastics 'syngas fermentation', think 'pyrolysis'
Do you think making a studio but everything is black 2.0 with LEDs would look dope?
Why not just use a plasma reactor (Geet fuel processor)? Then, you don't need it to be a liquid fuel since the reactor burns ionized particles at a single molecule level.
Wouldn’t that release more carbon into the air?
Stupid idea!
Great. Now I can be turned into fuel.
"we need to go back!"
Anyone know How this is any more or less than efficient than the traditional pyrolysis method of plastic to fuel conversion
And yet again, BTTF leading the way in scientific discovery.
Missed opportunity for a Mr. Fission reference..😬
How much E are you putting in for how much E are you getting out? Where does the E required come from?
RIP BRO🕊
Interesting project but is it more efficient and more environmentally friendly than just burning it in a well designed trash burning power plant?
Bc a lot of countries already do that effectively
Great innovations, but on Europe there is a legal normative that will cause 0% combustion energy production.
Not only for cars, etc., also for heating homes, etc. No combustion will be allowed at all everywhere.
what song did you use?
Although an interesting idea, the first and second laws of thermodynamics will show you can't win or break even; but it might be a good way to get rid of trash. Also, I'd like to see something about the Milankovitch cycle before proclaiming CO2 is the culprit regarding climate change.
Can you make fuel from a tiny ponytail?
Whatever the problem, you should have a vacuum chamber no matter what😂
Why create fuel when we need to Stop burning fuel?
It's Mr Fusion on the Delorian
The thing about land fills is that we are burying and trapping carbon underground. However a lot of carbon can escape the landfill as methane produced through bacteria and other natural processes of breaking down and decomposing. Methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2 so we don't want to just let the methane vent out to the atmosphere, but we want to capture and use it as fuel. Many landfills already capture the methane and pump it into city natural gas lines for houses to use for heating and cooking. When we burn the methane we are still releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere but we are preventing methane, the worse gas, from going into the atmosphere.
Using living organisms to convert syngas into a liquid fuel is a really overengineered solution.
It is way more practical to just convert syngas to methanol directly, in a single chemical reaction. Methanol, just like ethanol, is a liquid fuel that would work just fine with a car engine, and it doesn't require an actual biofactory to produce.
Pyrolysis is the best answer of plastic
Dear Action Lab,
Why do my Capri Suns reinflate when I don't finish them and leave a little bit of that sweet juice in the bottom?
Sincerely,
Capri Sun enthusiasts everywhere
Or most probably to use solid fuel for running Stirling engine.
The shirt is fire.
So I AM useful. Glad to hear that
Didn't some Scandinavian country start burning all of their trash (even importing it) to generate electricity? I think they had specialty emissions equipment that helped cut essentially all of the pollution other than CO2. It meant less natural gas or other fuels, and I think they got to recycle the metals and glass. If we had a better way to reduce CO2 emissions and ramp up sequestration, it might be a good way to dramatically reduce the amount of landfill wastes.
Correct!
There is a company in Alberta that has R&D to turn trash to fuels
reminds me of back to future😊