by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 08. 6.10
Cars & Transportation (cars)
Image credit: Geneco
TreeHugger has talked a lot about the power of poo over the years, and with sewage-powered robots and microbial fuel-cells fast becoming a reality, it's definitely time we rethink our attitude to human waste. But this might be the first time we've covered a poop-powered car—a vehicle that actually runs on human waste. Only one question, doesn't it smell?
According to the BBC, the converted VW Beetle runs on methane derived from sewage treatment, and is a demonstration project of GENECO & mdash, a branch of water utility Wessex Water that specializes in organic waste solutions.
Let's not get too excited yet (I know we are all itching to drive a car powered by poop!). It takes an awful lot of waste to run one vehicle—in fact, it would take the annual output of seventy households to run one such car for 10,000 miles. So this is hardly likely to be the automotive solution for the masses. But it is a novel use of a waste resource. And no, it doesn't smell:
"Despite being powered by fuel created from sewage, the car does not smell unpleasant.-"It performs like a normal car - you wouldn't know it was powered by biogas," a company spokesman said."
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