The new power source: pee

[Saint Clair Island]

Cow pee as a power source? Hm ...
I believe Gandhi said it best:

The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection ... so that we may harvest their pee. Their delicious, delicious pee. Milk isn't bad either, but mix it with at least 50% pee or you're just being disrespectful to Mother Cow.

That wasn't Gandhi, that was Benjamin Franklin. Get your facts straight,

No, Benjamin Franklin said, "A small leak can sink a great ship, unless it is taken in my mouth."
Don't feel too bad about it, many people get the two statements confused.

Funny, I always remembered it the other way 'round. But you're right; Wikiquote confirms it.

In fact, you'd be surprised what many great statesmen and authors had to say about cow pee.

[The Great Lord Tiger]

(insert piss joke here)

EDIT: This should totally go to the WA. Resolution to increase the amount of piss-powered cars.

Anyone feel like writing one up?

[Farnhamia]

That wasn't Gandhi, that was Benjamin Franklin. Get your facts straight,

No, Benjamin Franklin said, "A small leak can sink a great ship, unless it is taken in my mouth."
Don't feel too bad about it, many people get the two statements confused.

No, no, it was Nostradamus:

When the eclipse of the Sun will then be
Through its enemies they will come to subdue it
Their two vassals rebel against them
And then Arethusa will color a new river red

[Sanctus-Terra]

If it became a job to drink water and piss, I would go for it. I wouldn't care about the pay.

[JarVik]

I hate to break it to you, but pee isn't the power source here.

The're applying voltage to split off H from urea (NH2)2CO instead of water. You need an electricity source to do this. Ultimately your converting electrical energy into chemical, and than burning or reacting the Hydrogen with something to produce either electrical or heat energy. I don't see how you will get more energy out of this than than you put into this, as such its a new battery but not an energy source.

[Saint Clair Island]

I hate to break it to you, but pee isn't the power source here.

|sticks fingers in ears| La la la la, I can't hear you over the sound of the awesomeness of pee as a power source!

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Just think of all the pee we've flushed into the ocean in the last century. All that potential energy. Gone.

This is why you should never throw anything out. *nod*

[Farnhamia]

I hate to break it to you, but pee isn't the power source here.

|sticks fingers in ears| La la la la, I can't hear you over the sound of the awesomeness of pee as a power source!

Really, I mean, when you spell "Power" you start with "P"! Yay! A slogan!

[Luporum]

This is almost too good to peelieve.

[Farnhamia]

And in Ancient Rome, urine was used in fulling cloth, as the source of ammonia to clean the cloth. Odd as it sounds, that cleaning was done by slaves standing ankle deep in human urine, acting as human washing machine agitators. In fact, the urine was taxed.

[Epicnopolis]

HOLY SHIT

No, it's the other one.

[Epicnopolis]

Finally! I've been pissing in gas tanks for the better part of a decade and at last, they understand.

But, would it seriously work? Could you really just piss in your gas tank and it would work?

[Romanar]

I knew all the Coke & Mountain Dew I drink would pay off some day!

[Farnhamia]

Finally! I've been pissing in gas tanks for the better part of a decade and at last, they understand.

But, would it seriously work? Could you really just piss in your gas tank and it would work?

It would sure as hell cut down on people stealing gas with a syphon, eh?

[Grave_n_idle]

Does this mean if i get pulled over for drunk driving i can plead environmentalism as a defense.

If you get pulled over for drunk driving there IS no defence.

[Saint Clair Island]

Does this mean if i get pulled over for drunk driving i can plead environmentalism as a defense.

If you get pulled over for drunk driving there IS no defence.

Well, there is, it's just not a very good one. I.e. "I didn't think the cops would notice", or "But alcohol helps me concentrate!"

[Itinerate Tree Dweller]

Considering that most western municipalities that have a sewer system and filter waste from the water and recirculate the cleaned water, maybe they could extract the urea from the waste.

[Farnhamia]

Considering that most western municipalities that have a sewer system and filter waste from the water and recirculate the cleaned water, maybe they could extract the urea from the waste.

Maybe they could and augment the local budget thereby. But talking as if it were actually pee is much, much funnier.

[Pope Joan]

I hate to break it to you, but pee isn't the power source here.

The're applying voltage to split off H from urea (NH2)2CO instead of water. You need an electricity source to do this. Ultimately your converting electrical energy into chemical, and than burning or reacting the Hydrogen with something to produce either electrical or heat energy. I don't see how you will get more energy out of this than than you put into this, as such its a new battery but not an energy source.

OK, but that was too complicated to put in a simple eye catching post and poll.

But the link did explain it, and it does seem to be true that urea is 40 times more efficient than water in producing hydrogen, when thereby saves a lot of energy and engineering.

The article was borrowed from yesterday's Discovery channel.

Here's the original article, with a video:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/0 ... power.html

[Tubbsalot]

I hate to break it to you, but pee isn't the power source here.

The're applying voltage to split off H from urea (NH2)2CO instead of water. You need an electricity source to do this. Ultimately your converting electrical energy into chemical, and than burning or reacting the Hydrogen with something to produce either electrical or heat energy. I don't see how you will get more energy out of this than than you put into this, as such its a new battery but not an energy source.

edit: blah! I wrote a post disagreeing but now I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong, so .