Last week, we discussed a poop-powered rocket. Now a new car promises we'll see human waste's potential closer to home--or further from home, but not as far as space. The Bio-Bug, a modified Volkswagen Beetle, can run on fuel made from raw sewage. "Biogas upgrading" has allowed GENeco, Bio-Bug's developer and part of the British waste-processing companies that make up Wessex Water, to create methane from human waste. The process starts with anaerobic digestion: Microbes eat through waste in an airtight, oxygen-free container. They leave behind only digestate, which works as a fertilizer, and a gas mixture that is mostly carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is combustible in the modified car's engine. So, after removing the carbon dioxide, the company has poop power. Mohammed Saddiq, GENeco’s general manager, says on the company's site, that human waste is only the beginning.
“Waste flushed down the toilets in homes in the city ...
