The race to find a nearly inexhaustible supply of fuel for cars has lead scientists down some interesting paths of discovery. 
The electrification of automobiles has been around since the end of the late 1800s, bio-diesel efforts began back in the 1970’s; we now have gas-electric hybrid cars, natural gas, and soon the first true electric cars since the electric golf cart was invented. Now comes one of the best solutions for fuel to power your car – human waste. Engineers from Geneco, a very large biotechnology company that operates in 120 countries, have unveiled a modified Volkswagen Beetle that runs on compressed methane gas extracted from human waste. The human waste comes from a sewage works processor. Geneco’s biogas is manufactured by taking human waste and putting it into a decomposition chamber where oxygen starved bacteria breaks it down to produce methane. The methane is then harvested and placed into tanks inside the trunk of the VW Beetle, where it can be used to power the slightly modified engine. The neat thing here is that if you run out of biogas, your car can still run on regular gasoline. According to Geneco 70 homes can generate enough gas to run a car 10,000 miles, and they say that the car is carbon neutral. It produces less carbon dioxide than a normal car will during an average year, 3 tons vs. 3.5 tons, and since we were going to produce that methane anyway, why not use it in a carbon neutral manner. Other good news here is that the methane does not smell. Biogas really isn’t a new invention. Other efforts have used cow dung, but this is the first time human waste has been tried. If this ever becomes a practical application, I guess eating spicier foods will help accelerate our efforts to go carbon neutral.
Photo: VW Poop Car Photo Credit: Geneco
Can’t wait for this to become common place.
Nikhil