Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon Uses Liposuctioned Fat As Fuel For Car
And here's number 16 on our grossest stories of 2008 list: an LA plastic surgeon is in trouble for powering his car with "lipodiesel" from his patients' fat. Ewwww.
According to the article, Dr. Craig Bittner powered his and his girlfriends SUVs with his patients' discarded fat, and was proud of it, even running the now-defunct lipodiesel.com to increase awareness of disgusting ways to power your car. Unfortunately for Dr. Bittner, "state law forbids the use of human medical waste to power vehicles." This is an oddly prescient law.
Dr. Bittner is being sued by several former patients, who say they didn't consent to Dr. Bittner driving around on their spare tires.
(Photos: Getty)
Thanks, Sarah!
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these people suing are sad.
what? do they want the fat back?
Mm...smells like bacon.
...That's a really odd pre-existing law to be present for this. Also, how would fat power a vehicle anyways? I'm disgusted AND curious.
Did the patients at least get a discount on their surgery???
That picture is disturbing...
This has to be a biohazard as conducted, but I wonder if there's a safe way of doing it? Seems a shame to let it go to waste.
I know that starts opening up a sort of Soylent Green thing where you can bequeath your body to the energy company, but hopefully we'll have figured out something better by the time the world's oil supply runs out.
So if enough websites fall for it, it becomes news?
@Zeniq: Being a graduate in biochemistry I think I'll take a stab at this.
Gasoline is just a just a bunch of hydrocarbons (Cs and Hs), when you burn them, energy is produced, along with CO2 and H2O (and a bunch of other crap which causes pollution).
Oils and fats are also long strings of hydrocarbons, and so some ppl have started using waste oil from cooking as a fuel source. Logically, fat would be the next step.
Frankly, it's a shame to label anything as "trash" when it can be used for another purpose without harming anyone. I think this guy should be praised, not sued.
The individuals are suing for the shoddy work he did, permanent damages suffered and consequential damages from his work.
If he is in trouble with California, it's presumably under a broad "inappropriate disposal of medical waste", not specifically "state law forbids the use of human medical waste to power vehicles".
There's a surprising amount of "um what?" around this story. Why is lipodiesel.com registered to a mechanical engineering teacher at a California university, and why doesn't it have any Google (or other) cached history? Wired's writeup [blog.wired.com] is better than the article you linked to, mostly because it points out that the Lincoln Navigator (the girlfriend's SUV) doesn't have a diesel engine and couldn't possibly run on biodiesel.
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Contact me for more info about how my amazing fat can work for you!
@pfeng: actually, considering how long steam powered things were around, with the advent of the railroad and such, it wouldn't surprise me if there were specific statutes saying that laid down the rough equivalent of "don't burn bodies for fuel."
also you have to convert an engine to run on bio-diesel, it doesn't just run in a standard diesel engine.
@Zeniq: Rudolph Diesel's original Diesel engines ran on cooking oils, not the refined diesel fuel we have today.
With just slight modifications, any diesel engine can run on a variety of oil types, such as used cooking grease, olive oil, etc. Human oil, as long as its properly purified, is also apparently fine.
the ultimate recycling program.
So I guess whale blubber would be a green fuel. What a dilemma.
The picture with this post is kinda gross. But then I looked at the post below it "15 Grossest Stories of 2008." Think "liposuctioned fat" and then look at the picture from the "15 grossest things" post. Ewwwwwwwwww.
A census worker tried to test me once. I used him to drive to the store to pick up some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
@Jonbo298: I sooooo agree. Every time I catch a glimpse of it I think it is a picture of the "pregnant man." ;)
This came out ONE story too late... TO make the "Top 15 grossest stories of 2008"
I would have put this in the top five.
@ludwigk: Plus, these oils can be processed into "bio diesel". Many people are purchasing used cooking oil from McDonalds for just this purpose.
HOwever, many states have laws forbidding this because you get around the gas tax this way.
@iamlost26: You seem to be talking about oils and fats as if they are different, is that the case? I know the olive oil in my cupboard has 100% of it's calories from fat.
While you really can do that (I think a link other than Cracked would illustrate that better [www.lifegem.com] ), it wastes all the energy in that fat.
@katylostherart: Too bad we can't figure out some way to make oil out of dead bodies without the intervening millennia of pressure usually required.
It's people! Soylent Diesel is people!
Somehow I feel like it would have been more morbidly ironic if it was being burned in a German car.
Grossness and political outcries aside, I totally would do this if it were availible to me.
@proskills: Chemically speaking, and how the FDA classifies things are slightly different. Oil and fats both are classified as lipids (as are waxes), which is basically a long string of C's and H's as mentioned before. Depending on the exact shape of the molecule, which is usually related to the ratio of H's to C's, some of these lipids can pack together very tightly into solids, where as others don't fit together as well, and remain as liquids. Often "fat" refers to the solid form, and "oil" the liquid form....so lard is a "fat" and canola oil is an, um, "oil".
From the FDA's point of view, for labeling purposes, anything that is a lipid is listed as a "fat" on the label, regardless of what form it's in.
@Zach Ingalsbe: Yea, I was thinking the same thing...who cares..I mean they didn't want their fat when they got the liposuction done...
This is the perfect solution to the energy crisis! You see, by driving everywhere instead of walking, we've become fat. So, we suck out the fat and use it to fuel our cars! It's a self perpetuating cycle! Suck it, OPEC!
@FuryOfFirestorm: Yeah ok, but you need to trade in your car for a truck with a diesel engine.
Or better yet, deal the final blow to the big three by importing all those Euro cars with diesel engines. Those are the only cars I know with Diesel engines, the big three only use gasolina for cars, They think diesel is only supposed to be used for trucks.
He's the Tyler Durden of automotive-human fat synergy.
animal lard is ok, but human lard is a biohazard. ok, got it.
@squablow: damn you beat me to it. I was about to type the requisite Soylent Green Biofuel is people msg and I decided to double check if anyone had beat me to it and of course you had LOL. GMTA!
And on top of it all he is/was a horrible plastic surgeon. A very good friend of mine went to him for a lttle lipo on her stomach and she has dents. She is completely traumatized by it. I know... I know... don't judge... she is a nice and down to earth girl who works out a lot and just wanted a little help for the part that wouldn't come off. For what it's worth, she regrets it.
To think that he messed up her stomach and then stole her fat just makes matters worse. What a jerk.
also you have to convert an engine to run on bio-diesel, it doesn't just run in a standard diesel engine.
This is incorrect. You have to convert it to run on straight plant oil (by adding a heated tank and fuel line) but not to run on biodiesel. Biodiesel has mostly the same physical properties as dinodiesel. The modifications are made to the oil, not the engine.
I don't know how true this is... The story is from a Chinese newspaper, there is no way he could have powered his girlfriend's Navigator with "lipodiesel" as there was NEVER a diesel Navigator. Additionally, he said he used it in his Ford SUV as well, which would have had to been an Excursion. Does anyone know if you were able to buy a diesel excursion in CA?
I saw this story on a different site a few days ago and I still smell with excrement of a male bovine.
Pretty soon you will be able to just throw a kitten in the tank and get on your merry way.
Disclaimer: I'm a dog person, sorry, I'd never do it to my puppy but cute kittens grow up to be evil cats that are sneaky, mean and make me sneeze.
/still bitter about beeing scratched in the face one night while sleeping at my ex's house and having to get three stitches.
He should've just made soap.