Add a biodiesel converter and scraper to the front of a standard diesel car.

Just drive along scraping prairie dogs, armadillos, chipmunks, golden retrievers, Mormon missionaries, and slow moving yugos and dump them in the processor! Fuel as you go. Certain parts of Texas or Wyoming may have enough asphalt meat to completely power the car.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Feb 26 2007

Roadkill refinery Roadkill_20refinery
Scooped! [bungston, Feb 26 2007]

Thermal Depolymerization http://en.wikipedia...al_depolymerization
I *think* this is different from a biodiesel plant, it might work well too. [lankybits, Mar 29 2007]

If you make a roadkill ramjet, can you get up to lightspeed? No, really, can you? CAN YOU!?!?!?
-- GutPunchLullabies, Feb 26 2007


A [+] for "asphalt meat".

Works great in crowded cities. Jaywalking would stop overnight.
-- nuclear hobo, Feb 26 2007


Calm down, [GetLunch]

The numbers, gentlemen. Suppose that the average roadkill weighs 1kg (perhaps an overestimate, but consider Texas). Suppose also that the average animal has a calorie content of something like 4kcal per gram (ie, in the same region as many foods); then a typical roadkill represents 4000kcal or about 17MJ of energy.

A gallon of diesel is about 137MJ, so a single roadkill will give you a maximum of about 1/8th of a gallon of diesel, in energy terms. Of course, conversion efficiencies will be very low. However, with a reasonable density of roadkills, it is on the very cusp of feasibility.

It would be more efficient to harvest the asphalt itself, but this would not work for a convoy.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 26 2007


[Maxwell], suppose the average roadkill weighs 1kg... perhaps an overestimate? I'm not sure where you've been driving, but it wasn't Pennsylvania. During certain times in the year, Interstate 81 is festooned with deer carcasses, each weighing on average something closer to 50kg. You couldn't burn them up fast enough.

Assuming deer carcasses are similar enough to turkey offal, then you could convert 39% of the deer's mass to oil using thermal depolymerization, according to the chart in my link. You should scoop up the broken pieces of tractor-trailer tires, too-- those convert into oil even better than animals.

[Edit: Sorry, had to change my vote to neutral when I read [bungston]'s "Roadkill Refinery".]
-- lankybits, Mar 29 2007



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