Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car(50 MPG & 0-60 MPH 4 SEC!)

CBS NEWS ^ | Feb. 17, 2006 | STAFF

[kellynla]

(CBS) The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines performance and practicality under one hood.

But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been waiting decades comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean bio-diesel fuel to boot.

A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School

The five kids, along with a handful of schoolmates, built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren't exactly the cream of the academic crop.

[Keith in Iowa]

Twaddle.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>"and "imported oil is CHEAP?"
$60 a barrel? now I know you're insane!"<<<

Hitch your Horse to Bio Fuel, and the first drought will make you a believer that $60 a barrel IS Cheap

>>>>"and try and tell that lie to the over two thousand GI's who lost their lives in the Middle East...and their families"<<<<

Are you are a "War for Oil NUTCASE?", in my 28 years in the Military 25 of them were spent in the Middle East (Yes the Cold War was fought there as well), I have been out of the Military for 5 years (do the math), the US Marine Corps one of their very first missions was to the Middle East, was that for OIL too?

Your lack of research is showing, although I do believe that you mean well, I still think that you are misguided and haven't thought your position all the way through.

What do you think of Nuclear and Electric Vehicles?

TT

[TexasTransplant]

>>>>"Put a cummins deisel Idling on a go cart and you'd get 60 mpg!"<<<<

My Cummins pushing a a 4X4 carrying a full load in the bed just today got 18.1 mpg (540 miles, mostly highway but I at least 12 miles of that was in low range 4 wheel drive through mud, 20 minutes at idle and an additional 1 1/2 hours in City Traffic (Conroe, Houston and Victoria)

Put mine on a go cart, I think I'd get 80 mpg!

[CindyDawg]

You and me both.

[RHINO369]

"What do you think of Nuclear and Electric Vehicles?"

The most ideal system would be a nationwide standardized breeder nuclear reactor. Then put hundreds of them around the country. Then start building electric cars. When we get the fusion break even point we could start building those. Plus I've heard a little about hybrid fusion fission reactors.

[nomorelurker]

Will not eliminate it from the entire Gulf Coast.

[P-40]

Hitch your Horse to Bio Fuel, and the first drought will make you a believer that $60 a barrel IS Cheap

It would have to be a very widespread drought...and if that happened we would have worse things to think about.

[kellynla]

I have two minutes for you.

"Hitch your Horse to Bio Fuel, and the first drought will make you a believer that $60 a barrel IS Cheap?"

I would sooner "hitch my horse to bio fuel" than Middle Eastern oil, thank you.


"War for Oil NUTCASE?",
So you're saying that if there wasn't the huge oil deposits in the Middle East that we would have still gone to Kuwait and Iraq?



"in my 28 years in the Military 25 of them were spent in the Middle East (Yes the Cold War was fought there as well)"

and your point is?


"US Marine Corps one of their very first missions was to the Middle East, was that for OIL too?"

depends on which mission you're talking about...



"Your lack of research is showing?"

I've obviously forgotten more than you ever learned about oil, wars, alternative fuels and on and on and on! LMAO

[Seeking the truth]

Ponds?

[rvoitier]

If it hurts Big Oil's profits then the democrats will see to, somehow, remove those nuisances, imo.

[Genyous]

During the 1950's and 60's oil was around $3.00 a barrel
Gasoline was around $.30 a gal.

Today oil is around $60.00 a barrel.
Gasoline is around $3.00 a gal. or less.

Doing the math shouldn't Gas be $6.00 a gal??

Just a thought:)

[Muleteam1]

Where agricultural land still exists, most of the Gulf Coast should be great for sugar cane production. My grandfather was a cane producer in deep east Texas at the turn of the Century. I think the last original-styled sugarcane mill was somewhere around Angelina County, TX and run by a Grady Whitehead. When my father took me to the mill as a child in the late 1950s(?) Grady still had a mule pulling his crushing apparatus. My biased memories recall that cane being the juiciest and sweetest I had ever chewed. I'll bet old Grady would have never thought about fueling an SUV with his sugar products.

Muleteam1

[muleskinner]

"... a chipped VW Golf TDI..."

That car would go a long way to alleviate the oil supply problem, if there were enough built.

We can't get these in California thanks to the Calif. Air Resources Board. A speck of soot is enough to send C.A.R.B. screaming about deaths from asthma, then the liberal hive mommies nod in agreement, and another answer to the oil crisis is wasted.

[clodkicker]

How much energy does it take to refine gasoline?

[muleskinner]

If one were inclined to make a small initial investment, could read and follow directions no more complicated than from a Betty Crocker cookbook, you could get your Bio-diesel for nothing. Used french-fry oil, or any used cooking oil.

[Qout]

Why do they blend Bio-Diesel? You can run a car on soybean oil, but not until the engine gets hot. The petroleum diesel is to get the engine started and warmed up.

Of course, if you want to be a real greenie, two tanks could be used. Start the car on a few ounces of regular diesel, and then when the engine gets hot, switch tanks to the fry grease.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>>"I've obviously forgotten more than you ever learned about oil, wars, alternative fuels and on and on and on! LMAO"<<<<

Yes you are 100% better and so much smarter than I.

I wish I would not have wasted your time with my silly replies, forgive me, I feel so fortunate for the two minutes that you wasted upon me.

(Thank your Mom for me, she let you stay up way past bedtime)

[TexasTransplant]

>>>>"Doing the math shouldn't Gas be $6.00 a gal?? "<<<<

Yea but when I do the Math on my 1970's $600.00 Texas Instrument Calculator it keeps coming up $1.50, what gives?

[Question_Assumptions]

Thermal Depolymerization (Warning: Large scan of Discover Magazine article) produces substantially more energy than it takes to run the process.

The pilot plant mentioned in the article is running. It's hit some snags and has been costing more to operate than expected but it does work and the snags are nothing that can't be resolved and costs could ultimately come down.

[TexasTransplant]

>>>>"It would have to be a very widespread drought...and if that happened we would have worse things to think about"<<<<

Especially if we had to decide between Food and Fuel.

TT