Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car

Why can't the major car manufacturers come up with something like this.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/01/0346252&from=rss

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml

 

Oh they can, but its not profitable to the oil industry, so someone buys the patent, then shelves it.

 

They have its called a diesel engine,you can take almost any kind of organic oil and thin it down with white spirit so it flows through the injectors and it will work fine in a diesel engine,some engines will run fine on oil straight from the deep fat fryer

The law has quickly jumped on this one in the uk and its now illegal as your not paying any tax on your fuel,its also hard to dodge the law as your car smells like fryer

 

I saw a dude on telly who modified his diesel van and ran it on old chip fryer oil.

Just think, you could order your Happy Meal from McDonalds, then fill your tank at the same time in the Drive Thru.

"Would you like any cooking oil with that Sir?"


Don't know if it's an old wives tale or not, but apparently years ago a carburetor or injector was invented that was extremely economical.

It was so good that the oil companies bought the patent then shelved it.

No idea how factual it is, if at all?

 

Very probable, if not factual. Happens all the time. There are documented cases, but I can't remember the name of the inventors to look it up.

 

Yeah, I'm sure it or similar has happened occasionally. It certainly wouldn't surprise me.

 

It is a shame that an inventor would sell the patent when they could stand to make plenty of money and solve several issues in the world if they went into production. Short sightedness sucks. As does the power of the "almighty" currency.

 

It's not short sightedness at all.

It costs a lot of money, time and legal expertise to bring a product to a marketable stage.


I don't blame them. It's either sell the patent, or in most cases keep it and do nothing with it.

I'd probably sell it, and I'm sure most in a similar situation would.

 

I should rephrase my statement, I am not so much opposed to the selling of the patent as I am the idea of who the patent is being sold to. I would not fault anyone for doing what they wish with their own property, patent, whatever. In my opinion it is sad that we have all these abilities and because of the power of currency it gets lost in some conglomerates basement.
I am sure there are companies that would sponsor the production of such a product, assuming the government did not stop them from doing so.

I do agree with you that most people would sell the patent because of the amount of work that would have to be done to bring it to life. As I stated above, I would not fault anyone for doing so. Personally, I would sit on the patent until I found someone that would do the right thing with it.

 

I know the surer efficient injector designs all use the procees of completely vapourizing the fuel before injection into the engine so no unburnt fuel passes into the exaust system as in standard carburation

http://www.himacresearch.com/books/secret1.html

 

That's easy to say, and a very romantic notion, but it doesn't work that way in real life.

A lot of inventors mortgage their homes and sell all their assets to get to this point.

Sitting on it for just the right buyer is fiscally impossible unless they are a millionaire or have a trust fund.

 

You often have to run a feasability study to prove utility. This can be many thousands of dollars, depending on the patent request. So with the cost of a good patent attorney... For example, one case a friend of mine handled was way over $90,000. The feasibility study was on a new method for storage of nuclear waste.

You have to prove utility, industrial application, here in the US for scientific inventions. Then if you borrow the money for the utility study to get a bigger chunk of the change on your revenue, you really have to find a financial big guy to buy in.

 

We (Australia) lose a lot of great inventions because the government doesn't back our inventors up or provide them with assistance.

All our great inventions are now overseas, like the Black Box Flight Recorder and Orbital Engine etc.

Most would rather keep the inventions here, but they need money to develop their product.

 

Hi Insomniac,
here's a link listing some great Aussie inventions.A lot I didn't know about.
http://www.whitehat.com.au/Australia/Inventions/InventionsA.html

How's Sydney.It's great over here in the West.The further from Canberra the better.

 

That link is great, but depressing.

This country has some of the best inventions, if only we could develop them rather than relying on agriculture and mining.


Canberra is a dump. Sydney is great, but expensive.

Median house price is about $550 000, and that's for nothing flash.

Thinking of one day selling and moving to somewhere on WA coast or mid NSW coast.

I like WA, great beaches and weather.

 

Wow, and I thought all you Aussies had were great accents. No, seriously, I know you guys are very inventive. One of my friends from Australia here in the States is a scientist. He's a major researcher in biology. The frog DNA king. His wife is a wonderful artist too.

They moved from Australia because of the opportunities for research money here. I don't know how long that will go on here, though. We're accumulating a lot of red tape thinking here in the States as well. They moved from Austin to New Mexico because of the junk he was going through at the university--stuff mandated by the state legislature.

 

Australians don't have accents, the rest of the world does (I hate South African accents).

It's very hard for a small country like Australia, so we have to zealously guard everything that's ours.

We don't have the muscle of the US, or the population of China.

Unfortunately, Australia is relying too much on it's agriculture and mining rather than developing it's manufacturing and services sector.

Economy is going great now because of the resources boom, but it's not sustainable.

 

ROFL