Filling Your Tank with Pig Fuel?

When I heard that researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology had figured out a way to make biofuel from pig manure, all I could think was, “Too many jokes … biofuel an important issue … must write straight news story …”

So here goes: One pig’s lifetime excrement could potentially make 21 gallons of crude oil. Multiply that by the 100 million pigs slaughtered in the U.S. each year and you have a healthy profit for pig farmers, a way to use a major source of pollution that usually ends up in rivers, lakes and oceans, and a renewable drop in the bucket when it comes to reducing our foreign-oil dependence.

The only problem is that the fuel is even less clean than petroleum-derived fuel — less energy-efficient but with more heavy metals and sulfur. Researchers think they can solve some of these issues by “tweaking” the process of how the fuel is refined and even discover methods they can apply to other biofuels to make them burn cleaner.

That’ll do, pig.

(Shoot. Almost made it.)

Better Fuel Through Pig Manure (Wired Science)