Volkswagen Creates Sewage-Powered Beetle 83
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Volkswagen is giving new meaning to the term 'Dung Beetle' with a prototype able to cover 10,000 miles annually on the waste from 70 households. The Bio-Bug was launched by Wessex Water, which is generating methane from human waste at a sewage treatment works near Bristol. 'Our site has been producing biogas for many years, which we use to generate electricity to power the site and export to the National Grid,' says one company official. 'We decided to power a vehicle on the gas, offering a sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels which we so heavily rely on in the UK.' The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association says the launch of the Bio-Bug proves that biomethane from sewage sludge can be used as fuel. 'This is a very exciting and forward-thinking project demonstrating the myriad benefits of anaerobic digestion (releasing energy from waste). Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars.'"
Biogas is nothing new, (Score:3, Informative)
at least not in sweden. I driven a biogascar in sweden since 2008. At least volkswagen, volvo, opel (vauxhall), fiat makes commercial cars that can be bought here in sweden. The biogas that one uses in Stockholm is guaranted to be made from at least 50% of sewage, so I fail to see whats special about this car. Could someone enlight me how its different?
Re:Biomethane vs. Natural Gas (Score:4, Informative)
If filtered properly, none. Methane is methane.
But the two are likely to have impurities, and differ in terms of impurities present.
And as some other commenter said - 70 households of waste to power one car isn't too effective, unless they can improve the ratio sometime down the line.
It does lead to interesting thoughts - The sewage systems in developed countries are likely not nearly optimal for biogas generation, compared to the digesters that seem to be rapidly increasing in popularity in developing countries. I think the waste disposal systems that lead to optimal biogas generation are too "outhouse-ish" for most people in developed countries, but are a major leap forward in places like India where many places utterly lack any sort of sewage system whatsoever.