Electricity from Pee, Poo, and Toxic Waste
Ironic to write an article about alternative energy and making myself sound like a potty-mouth, but it’s the truth: Scientists have discovered ways to turn human urine, cow feces, and toxic waste into energy.
I discovered this little factoid while surfing through a series of fascinating articles on LifeScience.com. It turns out it’s possible to make a battery that, as far as tests have shown, will continue to produce a set amount of energy as long as you keep dropping in bits of cow poop. They originally created this cow battery from the microbe-rich rumen fluid from a cow’s stomach, but later on found that the stuff in plain old cow patties does the trick as well.
The toxic waste battery is powered by an organism that does double duty, eating the noxious industrial leftovers and, in the process, turning it into electricity. Now, that’s what I call a win-win situation: clean the environment and produce cheap, clean power. Not only that, it can do it under harsh conditions, including extreme heat and in the presence of radiation.
The pee battery, though, gets my vote for being the most practical. Imagine being in the middle of a blackout, with no batteries in the house, and your one flashlight starts going dead. What do you do? Open the cap on the bottom and pee into it. Instantly the bulb burns bright again, and hopefully you’ll be able to wash your hands in the light it provides.
