Forget the tiger- Put sheep urine in your tank
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.11.05
As John Laumer pointed out in yesterday's post, Diesels produce a lot of Nitrous oxides. Mix ammonia with Nitrous Oxides and you get nitrogen and water. And, if you are in England, a good source of ammonia is urea from sheep pee.
A British bus company has fitted a bus with a tank containing urea made from locally collected farm waste, which is sprayed into the exhaust fumes. "It is a novel way of reducing pollution but we believe it will work. There is nothing to worry about - we won't be asking passengers to leave a sample and we won't be carrying a resident sheep at the back of the bus." ::The Guardian more on the chemistry ::RJM Aris thanks, tipster Bonnie
We should note that the collection of the urine implies a different scene to the phot at the head of the article. It clearly has to be collected not in fields but in conditions where the sheep can be kept relatively still and the run off easily caught ... factory farming is one such scenario ... !?
I hope I'm wrong
You did a good job reporting "tank containing urea made from [...]"
As an old chemist, I've been grimacing at all of the articles across the web which make high mileage off the fact that "it's pee!"
It is true though, that urea is an "organic compound that is the principal end product of nitrogen metabolism in most mammals."
more here:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/u1/urea.asp