9 ms·
GMC made a motorhome that pumped sewage through its exhaust on purpose
- kazinator 2y ago> Apparently, urea and ammonia in the waste went untreated Of course not; these are not germs that are killed by a hot exhaust pipe.
- m463 2y agofunny enough, I think diesel trucks are required by law to burn a form of this with diesel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- christophilus 2y agoDriving behind that thing must be exhausting.
- cellularmitosis 2y agoTailpipe “emissions” indeed.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoModern cars with HEPA eliminate all smell
- wannacboatmovie 2y agoThat explains why all those motorhomes illegally parked in Seattle neighborhoods are dumping raw sewage into the streets. I always assumed it was a bug, not a feature.
- shiroiushi 2y agoAccording to the article, the system only pumps waste into the exhaust when the exhaust temperature is 900F and the vehicle is moving at least 35mph. So just dumping sewage onto the streets isn't how they work at all, unlike they're broken I guess. Also, this system apparently wasn't common, since it was just on one model, in one year, right before the oil embargo caused the entire RV industry to mostly die out for a while. Honestly, this thing doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. It would be interesting to see how it really affects tailpipe emissions with some modern testing (when it's working properly, of course).
- mjevans 2y agoIt sounds slightly less bad than dried horse dung on the streets. Seriously the savings to the RVs for polluting the commons are probably pennies on the dollar for all the issues this could cause others on the roads and near them.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>It sounds slightly less bad than dried horse dung on the streets. How so? It only releases liquid waste, not solid waste, and it's released into the exhaust stream that's 900F, at a rather low flow rate. Just guessing, I'd say the emissions from this device really don't sound harmful at all, whereas the emissions from the vehicle's engine itself (which probably lacks a catalytic converter since it was 1973) are quite awful. I'm also guessing that the emissions from this thing can't possibly be as bad as the emissions from all the diesel pickups today with their engines modified to "roll coal", which is rather common and completely unregulated.
- mjevans 2y agoLets say that the legally allowed limits of various pests which might infiltrate food production were taken as a guideline and 90% of those limits were intentionally added as filler, with the remaining 10% of the legal limit as a safety factor against recalls. Would you agree that's a bad thing? This is intentionally dumping waste in a diluted form; but right in front of the possibility of a sea of cars which happen to not be in a traffic jam (35+ mph IIRC?). Well maybe the motor-home is safely and slowing taking the curves on a narrow 2 lane highway with no real opportunity for passing with a bunch of cars backed up behind it, forced to endure the exhausts.
- fortran77 2y agoTrains used to dump waste, without incinerating it. Which is why there's this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyiMYI4oQTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyiMYI4oQTU
- snvzz 2y agoI remember an old train's toilet just being an outright hole to the area between both tracks. No processing whatsoever, you could look down and see your train zooming through the granite.
- Scoundreller 2y agoThe “do not use in station” is a really important sign to follow.
- iamacyborg 2y agoI remember seeing tomato plants growing on the tracks at my local station and realising how they got there.
- Scoundreller 2y agoBypass phytosanitary security theatre with this one simple trick!
- taneq 2y agoReminds me of a river cruise I went on in India back in '96. The toilet was a seat over a length of poly pipe going directly into the river. At one point we stopped around lunchtime and some British tourists on the cruise had a lovely lunch with locally caught fish... after which they were mysteriously rather unwell.
- LorenzoGood 2y agoDuring offshore sailboat races, we just hang off the back.
- trte9343r4 2y ago> the raw sewage, which accumulates in an onboard tank Misleading. RVs have separate tanks for toilets or use chemical toilets. "Sewage" is water from shovers or washing dishes.
- mikestew 2y agoBlack water (from the toilet) is most definitely sewage. Where did you get the idea that it isn’t? Grey water can be sewage, too.
- oaththrowaway 2y agoMy RV doesn't have separate tanks or a chemical toilet.
- Johnny555 2y agoMost modern RV's have separate grey and blackwater tanks, but many older units (including the 1973 GMC RV) had a single combined tank. You sometimes still still a combined tank on modern units, usually smaller ones. I don't know what you mean by "chemical toilets", I put digesting/deodorizing chemicals in my RV's black tank, does that make it a "chemical toilet"? Either way, the liquid I drain from the black tank is definitely what I would call "sewage".
- rhyperior 2y agoSome RVs have separate black water tanks (toilet specifically) and grey water tanks (shower, sinks). Not all do. Sewage is definitely black water and not grey.
- consp 2y agoConsidering people take a leak in the shower and stuck excrement can get lose during showering I would argue gray water has various shades of gray up to black.
- Animats 2y agoIt's not a fundamentally stupid idea. There are incinerating toilets. 900F will kill anything biological. Getting rid of ammonia is a pain, though.
- m463 2y ago> Getting rid of ammonia is a pain, though. There are systems that can do that too... blue ice from airplanes? or DEF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid
- kragen 2y agodef is the opposite; it gets rid of nitrogen oxides, which are strong oxidizers, not ammonia, which is a relatively strong reducer. in fact, def is made of urea, so if you heat it up enough, it will emit ammonia
- hexo 2y agowhat is 900F?
- defrost 2y ago482 Celsius
- red-iron-pine 2y ago755.372 Kelvin
- voxadam 2y ago1359.67 Rankine
- ASalazarMX 2y agoOr 4.82 teas (boiling waters at Earth's mean sea level).
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- nullc 2y ago> Apparently, urea and ammonia in the waste went untreated, Ahead of the curve on DEF!
- ramon156 2y agoTook exhaust a bit too literal
- elcaro 2y agoFirst thing I thought of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4g4WBo-5fc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4g4WBo-5fc
- evansj 2y ago> We and our 1274 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies OMG
- cainxinth 2y agoHey, I recognize that thing. It’s the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle!