A) What happens to the fat normally? It gets burnt in an incinerator. (Maybe, ironically, a waste-to-energy incinerator!) Or it goes into a hazardous waste landfill. Yeah, we need more of those.

B) If the rich primadonnas placed value on their fat, they would have asked for it back. Perhaps plastic surgery clinics need to have a "any parts replaced will be returned on request" policy. Anyway, they didn't ask for it back, I don't see how they can complain about what happened to it. The whole point of liposuction is to *get rid* of the stuff, not to keep it.

C) I really doubt the law specifically says "it is unlawful to power cars on human fat cells". It's probably an (overbroad!) application of the same anti-alternative-fuel excise tax "dodging" laws used on people who fuel cars with vegetable oil. (See, in my mind, a tax on an item applies to the item, not what you do with it. A gas tax is not a burning-gas tax.)

@yagisencho: you know oddly enough, I wonder if when you use french fry oil as fuel it smells like fries and cooking oil from chineese food resteraunts smells like pork fried rice, and hyrogen gives you a face full of vapor. What does "LipoDiesl" smell like when burned?

Part of the reason why burning bodies smell bad is that you are burning the organs and fluids at the same time - something that doesn't happen when you bar-b-que. There was an article in the paper about some guy who was trying to dispose of a body in his BBQ.

I'd be upset if the surgeon was charging disposal fees.

After those offices were shut down, he started using his middle name, and opened his Beverley Hills Liposculpture clinic as Dr. Alan Bitner - in spite of the fact that he is NOT a certified plastic surgeon, but rather a radiologist. Now that he's had to shut down that business (in the face of lawsuits from patients who had not been told that his Physician's Assistants would be performing the actual liposuction, which may be illegal if I'm understanding the articles I've read correctly) a note on his website says he's moved to Columbia.

In addition to the complaints about his PA's doing the work, many patients have also complained that the procedures - which were done using a local anesthetic rather than a general - were exceedingly painful, they were not provided adequate pain management treatments and that their results have left them with significant scars, non-symmetrical results (for example, one side of the waist curves in further than the other, or one hip is more prominent than the other,) odd "lumps" and other such problems.

At this point, I'm not willing to believe this guy has actually accomplished what he claims. If someone else can replicate the results, then I might be able to be persuaded (unless they have a similar track record to this guy.)

@Zeniq: You can convert any fat into bio diesel. Animal fats typically aren't used to make bio diesel because high temperatures are required to keep the fat from conjealing. Vegetable oil is just fat from plant seeds. Chemically they're all very similar and can easily be transesterified into bio diesel.

@sicknick: Really? If I knew my dentist was charging me a few hundred bucks a pop to remove a tooth, then turning it around and selling it at a profit, I'd be pretty irritated. I mean, I'm glad it's going to stem cell research, but why should your dad profit twice off of my teeth? (Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a great guy.)

I'd think it would at least be fair to split the tooth-sharing revenue with the patient. Otherwise, I'd just rather have my tooth back after the procedure, thanks. Plus there's all the DNA/privacy issues others have noticed. I don't wear a tinfoil hat, but I do prefer to keep as much of my genetic data as possible out of corporate hands.

mysteriously, the doctor has suddenly decided to move to south america & volunteer his wares there. i'm sure there's no case here at all...

It's all quite legal and wonderful.

I love how the ex patients are suing. ANYTHING to get a free ride.

That is the greatest idea ever

On the other hand, if this became a viable technology, people would probably find a way to minimize any excess odor.

It seems like humans might have some sort of natural recognition and hopefully revulsion towards the smell of human bodies cooking, barring the occasional cannibal. The descriptions of the smells from concentration camps were usually pretty negative...

@Zach Ingalsbe: Fat back? mmmmm

@Ananelle: No kidding ;) Where do I sign up to sign my fat away? You buy the cheesecakes, and I'll fuel your car forever!

@rioja951: The Big (or rather formerly big) Three sell diesel engined vehicles for European consumption. I was in the EU last summer and saw Chrysler products (PT Cruiser, Jeep Grand Cherokees, 300s, etc) sporting CRD badges which indicated diesel engines versus gasoline.

@Zach Ingalsbe: It is not about the fat but the use of and controlling your dna or something like that.

At least he could have given them a discount by weight removed versus miles per pound...

I've also heard you can mix it with regular diesel fuel in a certain ratio to keep the mix liquid enough to run. I think 50/50 in a temperate climate (mid-Atlantic region/Pacific Northwest of the US), 20:80 in a southern region, and 80:20 in the coldest places, where vehicles probably already have a fuel heater. Still, there's virtue in modifying the vehicle to completely use a non-petroleum fuel source.

Ethically, I see little problem. What else would you do with this medical waste? Throw it away to rot? It's just in terms of sheer, primal disgust that this is wrong. I don't see this spreading disease or anything, since it's for a car where it's burned before being emitted.

However, I've heard vegetable oil makes a french fry smell when burned in a car. I really don't want to know what human fat would smell like as it burns, but I assume it isn't odorless or pleasant.

My dentist rocks - as long as he does quality work he can have any extra teeth I don't need anymore for whatever purpose.

As a punishment for suing, these people should have the fat injected into their scalps in the form of an ass because they are truly asshats.

Oh sure, give people a reason to get fat.

@Zach Ingalsbe: I agree people are a bit over-litigious, but don't you think you'd like to consent to something like this before it happened? If your dentist turned out to be saving all the teeth he pulled and making a nice inlaid-tooth tabletop for his living room (look, I don't know; he's a dentist, he likes teeth) wouldn't that creep you out a bit?

Makin' me LOL at work!!! That was great!

@RTFA_SteveDave: FFFFVVVV FFFFFFVVVVVV FFFFFFFFFFFVVVVVVV

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.

@darabidduckie: His name was Craig Bittner, his name was Craig Bittner.

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.

I call BS: [blog.wired.com]

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.

To think that he messed up her stomach and then stole her fat just makes matters worse. What a jerk.

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!

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.

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.

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.

HOwever, many states have laws forbidding this because you get around the gas tax this way.

I would have put this in the top five.

@Jonbo298: I sooooo agree. Every time I catch a glimpse of it I think it is a picture of the "pregnant man." ;)

So I guess whale blubber would be a green fuel. What a dilemma.

I am Jack's Biofuel.

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.

[www.cracked.com]

also you have to convert an engine to run on bio-diesel, it doesn't just run in a standard diesel engine.

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.

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.

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.

Mm...smells like bacon.

what? do they want the fat back?

He should've just made soap.