We Wee For the Environment – Part 1

The Mazda CX-7 4X4 is an environmentally-friendly vehicle and is only available in Australia at the present time.  It emits virtually no Nitrous Oxide compounds.  The NOx compounds were blamed during the acid rain fears of the 1960’s.

The compounds (NOx) are caused when air is drawn into the engine to burn the fuel.  Air is basically comprised of 21% oxygen and the rest is nitrogen, aside from small quantities of carbon dioxide and other gasses.  The nitrogen under the heat of the combustion chamber in the engine changes form and combines with some of the unused oxygen and forms the noxious gasses.

Mazda injects a combination of urea and demineralised water (marketed as AdBlue) into the exhaust system and suddenly the NOx is changed into the harmless nitrogen and water.  A 4 gallon tank holds the AdBlue.

If you let the AdBlue tank get low, the on-board computer reduces the engine’s top speed to really annoy you to get it filled.  If it runs dry, get ready for some jogging as the vehicle will refuse to start.  A refill costs $128 U.S. dollars.  Think the cost of gas is expensive?  AdBlue costs around $32 U.S. dollars a gallon!

Well, like Kermit the Frog says, no one said being green was easy (or inexpensive for that matter).

Here is a hypothetical scenario: you are driving in the middle of the Outback or Bush and run out of AdBlue.  The vehicle will not start.  What do you do?  If you don’t have a satellite phone, you might just die if you do not have the proper survival skills.

Interestingly enough, AdBlue is a combination of urea and water which is very similar to our urine!  I assume (just remember the expression assume makes an ASS of U and Me) you could just wee (Down Under talk for pee or urinate) into the tank and continue your drive safely.

While I don’t recommend doing this, your wee could also conceivably save you money.  It would probably take three or four of cases of Fosters (Down Under talk for beer) to produce four gallons of urine.  Unless they start making beer out of gold, the beer would be a lot less expensive than a fill up of AdBlue and you would have fun making some organic AdBlue replacement.

What happens if you do not have a Mazda with selective catalyst reduction technology and still want to reduce the noxious NOx emissions from your own vehicle?  In Part 2, I will whimsically tell you how.

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