When the world of coffee, which is always full of surprises and curiosities, joins science, which is always looking for new fuels, here comes from England the Car-puccino, the car that uses coffee as fuel. BCC1's "Bang Goes The Theory" science program created the Car-puccino by converting a Volkswagen Scirocco, bought at a price of 400 pounds, purchased specifically for its resemblance to the DeLorean from "Back to the Future." An engine-caffeine was installed on the car, making it move by harnessing the gases produced by heating the beans, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, reaching a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).
The Car-puccino consumes an average of one kilogram of coffee beans every 5 kilometers, the equivalent of 28 espressos per kilometer, and for the entire journey from London to Manchester it consumed 11,760 coffees. Unfortunately, the car needs a stop every 60 km or so to fill up with coffee beans, and a stop every 100 km to clean the filters from the accumulation of waste during the combustion process....is why the test trip took about 10 hours.
Certainly this car did not go unnoticed because of the trail of coffee odor it leaves behind, however, this noble intent to safeguard the environment and the wallet did not work. In fact, the coffee car is not at all cheap being 25 to 50 times more expensive than conventional cars that run on petroleum derivatives. Nor is it environmentally friendly, since one of the byproducts of combustion is carbon monoxide.
The Car-puccino thus remains a simply a demonstration of what and how many unusual fuels can power an automobile: the same mechanism used to harness coffee as fuel can be employed by powering the Car-puccino with wood, peanut shells or even agricultural waste.
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