Inventor shows how dog poo can power a street lamp

Inventor shows how dog poo can power a street lamp
www.bbc.com...

Dog walkers on the Malvern Hills are being encouraged to drop the waste into an anaerobic digester which converts it into methane to fuel the lamp.

Ten bags are sufficient to provide two hours of light. Creator Brian Harper said he wanted to find a use for it after seeing poo-filled bags being left at the area of outstanding natural beauty.

He said he first saw the idea in an art installation in the US city of Boston about five years ago and is also a member of a group that has helped save more than 100 listed gas lamps in and around Malvern.

"I looked and I thought this is a crazy way. There must be a way of trying to give dog poo a value so people would do something sensible with it," he said.

How it works:

Dog walkers must collect free paper "poop scoop" bags to collect the waste which they deposit in the device

They rotate a handle five times which moves the bag and the poo into the bio-digester where it gets broken down by microbes

Over a period of days it produces bio-gas - 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide - which is stored in a small gasometer

When the lamp senses it is dusk, it turns on its own gas supply, ignites a gas mantle and uses the bio-gas to light up

Now this is very fascinating! The video is in the link and definitely worth watching.

How I love how poop can power the world! Gooooo poop!!!

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

The world really needs to start focusing on recycling as many things as possible. We can't keep on sending waste and garbage to landfills. I'm sure we can recycle just about everything if we could just set-up a system to separate and handle it and put it to good use.

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

What A crock of.....

Seriuosly this is what we do in the UK, it generally rains all the time and we have time to spare.

Innovative sh1t, what a guy, does he mind if we dont shake hands though.

The future is bright, the future might be smelly

a reply to: Skywatcher2011


Ummm...Holy crap...

Now...if only I could scale that up so that it runs off of my septic tank...






YouSir

Sounds like a win/win.
Options:
-Walk in the dark streets flooded with dog poop.
-Walk on well lit streets free of dog poo.

I know It causes blindness. My boys never saw It on the lawn.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I know It causes blindness. My boys never saw It on the lawn.

Haha!

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

I think this is absolutely brilliant!

I also think it will face the same issues as we do not, lazy dog owners that refuse to do the right thing!

Where I live we have thousands of acres of open space. It is doggie heaven. We have a little strip of cut paths, wouldn't you know that owners keep letting their dogs poop right on the path, instead of the other thousands of acres!!! Lazy!

Very cool! I wonder if something like this could be done on a larger scale, such as routing the sewage/septic systems through a processing facility, and so on. For traffic lights, and anything else requiring power. Reminds me of a joke in a way. As many cameras as the UK has, I don't think I would want poo powering them! err err

In Anchorage, AK they use the methane from the landfill to power the landfill and 25% of the nearby military base. A cost effective system for heat or power from a septic tank would make someone a lot of money.

Interesting read. Really goes to show that we can recycle more things, its all possible by the limits we put on possibilities. Derr..... requires an open mind, which result in open eyes, which further results in seeing that possibility becoming actuality! The ingenuity of certain people though really astounds me at times. Props to the one who realized that dog pooh could light a lamp!

a reply to: UpsideDownWorld


In Auckland NZ the whole cities sewage went through gas digesters, and they added ten percent diesel which ran a couple of large generators, which powered the whole site and the excess electricity was put into the National grid. I think Christchurch still operates this system, some guys take the gas and run their cars. Then during the "Greed is good years" this system was shelved and to balance the budget they slashed wages and used a different system when the plant was privatized.