It’s no accident that human excrement is called “waste.” Aside from Bear Grylls and his penchant for purifying and drinking his own urine, humans haven’t had much use for their own waste. Until recently, when we found an easy way to convert urine into drinkable water, created a urine-powered generator and devised a way to power cell phones with urine. But until now, more solid waste hasn’t had a place in all this.
Researchers in Singapore’ Nanyang Technological University have harnessed the power of solid waste by creating a toilet that transforms human waste into biogas and biodiesel.
It's called a No-Mix Vacuum Toilet and it uses vacuum suction, a la an airplane toilet, to separate the waste into liquid and solid. The solid waste is processed into biogas, and the liquid waste is processed for chemicals like phosphorus to create fertilizer.
The usages of the latter are obvious. It’s basically a cleaner form of diesel, so it can be used to power planes, trains and automobiles.
Biogas is a little different. It refers to gas that’s created by the breakdown of organic matter (like, say, last night's dinner), and it can be compressed the way natural gas can. In other words, there’s an awful lot of power to be tapped if we just remember not to flush.
As a renewable fuel, it could potentially be used to power cars and, oh, anything else natural gas fuels. If that’s the case, we’d essentially have a never-ending source of renewable energy. You could even say we’d be sitting on it.
Via BBC
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