Denver Zoo's Poo Powered Vehicle

[yg17]

The Denver Zoo today will fire up a poo-powered tuk tuk as proof that human trash and animal feces can be converted to energy.
The three-wheeled motorized rickshaw — believed to be the first hybrid-electric gasified tuk tuk — is designed to showcase the innovative energy system that will fuel the Toyota Elephant Passage exhibit, which opens June 1.
"(The tuk tuk) can be a place for us to interact with guests about this great technology," said the zoo's sustainability manager, Jennifer Hale. "It was a good theme with the elephants."
Before the grand opening of the massive new exhibit, the rehabbed vehicle will go on the road, visiting other zoos in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico before making an appearance at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' midyear meeting in Palm Desert, Calif.
The tuk tuk was purchased from Thailand and then re-engineered to run on gasified pellets made from animal droppings and trash generated by the zoo's human visitors and employees. It is the zoo's second prototype for the energy system. The first was a blender used to mix margaritas at an event.
The full-fledged system should be complete in the fall.
If it is successful, the energy system could change the future of waste management in many settings.
"This is not just a zoo thing," Hale said. "It can be applied on campuses, in communities and many other environments."
The zoo's system will convert about 1.5 million pounds of waste — using all of the animal droppings plus 90 percent of the solid waste produced by visitors and employees — into energy annually, offsetting 20 percent of the zoo's total energy consumption.

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http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20227777/motorized-rickshaw-shows-off-power-zoo-poo


So how long do you think it will be until we're able to drop a deuce in our car's gas tank instead of paying 5 bucks a gallon?

 

[iJohnHenry]

So how long do you think it will be until we're able to drop a deuce in our car's gas tank instead of paying 5 bucks a gallon?

You can do that now, but the filler pipe might chafe some.

Seriously, you would probably do 1rpm with that amount of feces.

 

[scottness]

You can do that now, but the filler pipe might chafe some.

Seriously, you would probably do 1rpm with that amount of feces.

Not yet economically feasible, eh? I would like my personal waste to be worth something, though. After all, I spent valuable time creating it.

 

[localoid]

Chicken Manure Powered Car

That well-known scientific authority, The National Enquirer, ran an article in 1970 about a Harold Bate, a British inventor who'd found a way of converting chicken droppings to methane gas and running his automobile on it.

The Mother Earth News, Issue 10, July 1971, featured a story on the invention. I remember reading a similar story about Bate's chicken $*** powered car in The Whole Earth Catalog sometime in 1972. Bates explained how you could collect the gas in plastic balloons, then attach the balloon to an adapter to feed the gas into your carburetor. He offered the "adapter" for sale at about $33, if I remember correctly...

Who needs a tiger in their tank? Harold Bate, chicken farmer and inventor from Devonshire, England says that you can power your motor vehicles with droppings from chickens, pigs or any other animal of your choice . . . even with your own waste! To prove his statement is no idle boast, Harold has been operating a 1953 Hillman and a, five-ton truck on methane gas generated by decomposing pig and chicken manure for years. He claims that the equivalent of a gallon of high-test gasoline costs him only about 3¢ and that the low-cost methane makes his vehicles run faster, cleaner and better than they operate on "store bought" fuel. Mr. Bate stands beside his famous Hillman in the photo above.

The secret is methane, a common by-product of the natural process of decomposition and a much cleaner fuel than gasoline. Mr. Bate generates me thane in usable quantities by simply speeding up nature a bit with a pressure "digester" . . . just as an organic gardener speeds up the decomposition of natural matter with a compost pile.

There's nothing complicated nor expensive about the Bate digester. Whereas the large petroleum corporations must refine gasoline in complex, multi-million dollar plumbing nightmares, Harold's methane cooker looks more like a recycled home fruit canner and is small enough to fit into the corner of any basement or garage. Converting a private car to operate on this natural fuel is just as straightforward and economical and--for an initial investment of $100 or less and a little elbow grease--almost anyone should be able to start riding the roads virtually free of charge . . . assuming there's a supply of animal droppings and/or other organic waste at hand.

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/gree...nure-car-fuel-zmaz71jazgoe.aspx#ixzz1qam6tLCL

So how long do you think it will be until we're able to drop a deuce in our car's gas tank instead of paying 5 bucks a gallon?

Enterprising do-it-yourselfers should take note: the article provides much detail about Bate's "digester".

 

[iJohnHenry]

I can see the future now.

Instead of siphoning gas from parked cars, guys will be skulking around the countryside in the middle of the night, siphoning "droppings" from septic tanks.