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.'"
Re:Too bad only 1 in 70 households can use one.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that will sure be sustainable. At the 1 in 70 households being able to have 1 car like this, I don't see this as an ultimate solution, but it might be a start at least.
The 70 households is just a typical journalist trick to make it comprehensible for average Joe. Once you start taking into account all the biogas that can be generated from others sorts of waste(livestock, excess farm produce, etc) it starts to add up.
And no, none of these solutions will solve our energy problems in a single go. But if we keep chopping off 2% here and 5% there, that will get us towards energy independance in the long run.