Poo Power!

Everyone is very worried about the amount of pollution we are causing, governments have set up special companies to research into how we can reduce the amount of pollutants we put into our atmosphere. Some small independent companies have also been set up to research and deliver how to recycle the waste we produce.

GENeco based in Bristol is a natural waste recycling company; it has been developing ways to recycle natural waste such as human waste. The company has recently modified a Volkswagen Beetle to run on human waste. Called the Bio-Bug, it's powered by methane gas generated during sewage treatment.

The VW Bio-Bug drives and performs exactly the same as a normal Beetle, except it can achieve a year's average mileage - 10,000 miles - from the toilet waste of just 70 homes. What’s remarkable is that the there is not actually any new technology in the Bio-Bug. Countries like China and India have been using compressed natural gas (CNG) to power their cars for many years now. In the UK we have been using natural gas to power some of our buses and commercial fleet vehicles but not really invested in using CNG in our passenger cars.

GENeco has been producing natural biogas from sewage, which can be used in CNG vehicles, to power its own site as well as provide the National Grid for some time. The process of converting sewage into gas is called anaerobic digestion. Our European neighbours, Sweden has been using CNG to run over 11,000 cars. GENeco predict that if we used all the CNG they produced to run our cars we would contribute 19,000 tonnes less of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Lord Rupert Redesdale, the chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, said, “Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars, and the water regulator Ofwat should promote the generation of as much biogas as possible through sewage works in the fight against climate change.”

It is not long till the research GENeco has carried out will be applied to commercial passenger vehicles and we start seeing poo powered cars being sold at a Volkswagen Golf GTI dealership in London.