Can You Use Human Fat to Fuel Your Car (and is it ethical)?
What if an alternative form of fuel is staring at us in the face–or is, rather, part of our face?
I am all for alternative forms of energy and fuel, especially if it means lowering our carbon footprint and protecting our environment. Common types of “alternative fuels” generally include electricity, hydrogen, natural gas, and biodiesel. For those without electric vehicles, biodiesel is probably the most popular choice among the various alternatives to using traditional gasoline.
Unlike conventional diesel, biodiesel is a renewable fuel produced through the “transesterification” of vegetable oil, animal oils and fats, tallow, or used cooking oil. If you’re into reducing, reusing, and recycling (but still like to get from Point A to Point B in a car), using old cooking oil or “waste” products from the agriculture industry is a huge plus.
Currently, the largest source for biodiesel comes from vegetable oil crops such as rapeseed, palm, and soybean. Despite the popularity and prevalence of vegetable oil, animal fats can also be used to produce high-quality biodiesel that meets ASTM specifications.
Using Fats for Biodiesel Production
The biodiesel industry has been experiencing changes over the past decade or so. Over this course of time, animal fats have become popular sources of biodiesel feedstocks because their cost is lower than vegetable oils and their market is much more limited. They also generate RINs under the Renewable Fuel Standard and have a high free fatty acid (FFA) content.
In the US, approximately 1/3 of fats and oils produced come from animals (such as beef tallow, pork lard, and chicken fat). Animal fats are traditionally utilized in making pet food and animal feed as well as industrial purposes like soap-making. Tallow is also used in some lubricating oils.
Inedible tallow, choice white grease, and poultry fat are likely to be used as biodiesel feedstocks.
How does fat go from being on the body to running a diesel engine?
Before fat can be turned into biofuel, it is rendered into oil. The rendering process involves grinding the animal by-products and cooking them until liquid fats separate and pathogens are destroyed. Water is also removed during the cooking process, which creates a solid, stable material. By the end of the rendering process, what’s left are fat and a product called “meat and bone meal” (which can be found in certain dog foods, if you look).
Fat-based biodiesel isn’t the perfect fuel; as with everything else in the world, it has both perks and drawbacks. For instance, animal fat-based biodiesels have a higher cetane rating than both veggie- and petrol-based biodiesels and produce smaller increases in NOx than other biodiesel products. However, they can also have too high a sulfur content for highway use and can be too viscous.
Since it’s both possible (and somewhat common) to run cars on animal fat, can this be translated to human fat?
The short answer is yes.
It is possible to produce biodiesel from human fat. Just like animal lard, human body fat contains trigylicerides and can undergo transesterification to be turned into fuel. During the transesterification process, triglycerides react with alcohol to form ester and glycerol. Triglycerides have a glycerine molecule as its base with three long chain fatty acids attached; the nature of the attached fatty acids determines the characteristics of the fat, which can then affect the characteristics of biodiesel.
Creating fuel from human fat has actually be done before.
In 2007, an eco-boat called The Earthrace broke records by circumnavigating the globe in under 61 days. But if that’s not a special feat in and of itself, it did so–in part–powered by human fat. Three members of The Earthrace crew actually underwent liposuction for the challenge; their combined 2.5 gallons of fat produced almost 2 gallons of fuel, which was enough to go 9 miles out of their 27,600-mile journey.
In 2008, a cosmetic surgeon from Beverly Hills, California, claimed that he produced biodiesel from fat he liposuctioned off patients. Once the California Department of Public Health found out about Dr. Craig Alan Bittner’s scheme, he apparently left California for South America. There wasn’t much evidence to support whether Bittner actually did this–in fact, if anything, it seems more likely that it was all a lie.
Is it a viable option for fuel?
The short answer is no, probably not.
This answer could get a little complicated–particularly depending on your morals (not to mention medical waste laws).
Realistically, there’s probably not going to be enough liposuctioned human fat to impact the biofuel market very much. Going back to The Earthrace example, they needed more than 2 gallons of fat to produce only 2 gallons of fuel. That translates to close to 20 pounds of human fat for those 2 gallons of fuel (since 1 gal. fat = 7.4 lbs.).
So If I wanted to fill my 18.5-gallon fuel tank to the brim with human fat-derived biodiesel, I would need about 137 lbs of fat to make enough fuel. That’s more than an average person (considering humans have more than just body fat on their skeletons — they also have bones and such).
You might be thinking, but there are other ways to acquire human fat! (Or maybe you’re not and just think this whole idea is weird/disturbing/gross, etc.) Technically there are, but that doesn’t really make the idea any more feasible. At least not for the time being.
For one, things could get tricky if any human fat in question is considered medical waste (which is waste generated at various health care facilities, medical research facilities, and laboratories). So, any fat that comes from a hospital as, say, a medical procedure, needs to be disposed of properly and in accordance with disposal regulations (which are regulated by state environmental and health departments). In California, for example, fueling a vehicle is not the proper way to dispose of medical waste.
But what about body fat that isn’t included in medical waste? I mean, people donate their bodies to science all the time, but I’m not going to suggest that we start running vehicles on dead people. That is totally above my moral pay grade as a mere human. We’ve got issues regarding dignity, bodily integrity regarding deceased persons, and a whole slew of other moral/legal objections that I’m sure would rise up at such a suggestion. Who knows–it might even initiate a black market for illegally-obtained human fat biodiesel?
Sources:
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/02-03/biofuels/what_biodiesel.htm
http://articles.extension.org/pages/30256/animal-fats-for-biodiesel-production
http://biodiesel.org/docs/default-source/news—supporting-files/animal-fats-and-tallow-bd-demand-impact-report.pdf?sfvrsn=2
http://biodiesel.org/what-is-biodiesel/biodiesel-basics
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2008/1229/can-we-run-our-cars-on-human-fat
Note: This article originally appeared on Industrial Outpost
