Soylent Fuel is People! Biodiesel Made From Humans? Ick.
In the category of “Things I’d Rather Never Read About Again,” we’ve found a winner.
A plastic surgeon in Los Angeles has discovered that he can use the fat he liposuctions off of his patients to provide all the biodiesel he needs to power his and his girlfriend’s SUVs. Not only that, he says he has extra. I wonder if he’s willing to share?
Got the heebies yet?
Alan Bittner, a high scale Beverly Hills doctor, has been making the liposuctioned human fat into biodiesel for some time now. There are lots of rendering firms in the US — like Tyson Farms, for instance — that already take similar waste, such as poultry fat, and turn it into biodiesel, but I’m imaging that Bittner is the first guy to actually turn human fat into fuel.
- » See also: Biofuels Breakthrough: Making Fuel From Air With Engineered Microbes
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The conversion of fat into fuel can almost be done on a one-to-one basis so that a cup of fat will turn into a cup of fuel. Says Bittner in a Forbes Article:
“The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel — and I have more fat than I can use. Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth.”
All is not well in the world of people-diesel though. Apparently, it’s illegal to use human medical waste to make fuel in California. Bittner’s website, lipodiesel.com, has been taken down and he’s under investigation by the California Public Health Department. As of this writing, his doctor’s office website is saying that his practice has been closed.
Uh, I’m all for recycling, but I’m thinking that if people didn’t eat so much food in the first place and didn’t find themselves wanting/needing liposuction, those resources that would otherwise put fat on their bellies could be used to make biodiesel without the intervening steps, no?
Source: Forbes
Image Credit: Image is in the public domain as it appears on the FDA website.
I believe the owner of the Earthrace Boat http://www.earthrace.net was the first person to do this. The boat is his love, but he didn’t feel the same about his love handles…
“Bittner’s website, lipodiesel.com, has been taken down and he’s under investigation by the California Public Health Department. As of this writing, his doctor’s office website is saying that his practice has been closed.”
If only we could think of a legal way for human fat to be harnessed by humans for transportation…
It confounds. I think I’ll go ride my bike to clear my mind and see if I can think of a way.
Hey sounds good. Subsidize the liposuction of all the superized McDonald’s customers and we could power the world. Please sign your fat is my diesel waiver please.
I love it! The local Wal-Martians could power my hybrid for YEARS, I’m sure!!
Seriously, this would be kind of a cool thing to institute, no? Organ donor? Yes! Diesel rendering of non-useful bio-waste? Yes!
Then my inevitable, fire-y, death-by-motorcycle will save a life, and maybe a tree!!
It’s probably going to go down like this somewhere around 2048. Check out my story, “It Happened at Nextfest”. http://www.lulu.com/content/1570109
or
http://www.nqbeta.com <- the book trailer
I had this idea ages ago and made several posts about my concept via biodiesel.infopop.cc under the ‘handle’ of ’spencnaz’.
The process of making biodiesel from solid lipids is tricky as the temperature drops the fuel generated will solidify. The rule of thumb is that if the feedstock is solid at room temperature the fuel will solidify at a temperature slightly less than that as the ester molecules link up.
There are those who have been able to make biodiesel from lard, but they live in warmer climes such as the southern United States and Central/South America.
A German inventor claimed that he was able to make fuel from dead cats, this of course brought significant ire from cat lovers world wide.
to bad using human fat as fuel is illegal. With right clean up procedure it can be clean. after all the patent paid to get fat out of him or she. Once it out of the patent has no use. The doctor can lobby to get law changed.