14 DAY TRIAL // Bio-Bug is a VW Beetle modified by The Greenfuel Company to work on methane gas produced by the sewage treatment process. The project is a collaboration between the Bath-based company, GENeco, the University of Bath and the South West Regional Development Agency. This is an innovative project that wants to encourage sustainable power.
Waste flushed down the toilets of just 70 homes in Bristol is enough to power the car for an entire year, or 10,000 miles, Bio-Bug's creators say. They found a way of treating the gas generated by the sewage treatment, so that the car's performances would not be affected.
At Avonmouth, Bristol sewage treatment facility, nearly 18 million cubic meters of biogas is produced every year. The process is called anaerobic digestion and it is made by bugs that break down biodegradable material, in the absence of oxygen, and produce methane. To be able to use this gas without affecting the car's performances and reliability, the gas is treated in a process called biogas upgrading. It basically separates carbon dioxide from the biogas, thanks to a special equipment.
All the biogas produced at Avonmouth and transformed into Bio-Bug fuel, could avoid almost 19,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
Mohammed Saddiq, GENeco’s general manager, said he believed that methane from sewage treatment could be used as an alternative power source. He said: “Our site at Avonmouth has been producing biogas for many years which we use to generate electricity to power the site and export to the National Grid. With the surplus gas we had available we wanted to put it to good use in a sustainable and efficient way. 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. If you were to drive the car you wouldn’t know it was powered by biogas as it performs just like any conventional car. It is probably the most sustainable car around.”
Other countries like China and India already use compressed natural gas to fuel vehicles, and several companies in the UK are now using it for powering buses and commercial vehicles. More than 11,500 vehicles in Sweden run on biomethane produced by sewage plants.
Mr Saddiq explained the choice of the VW Beetle for the biofuel experiment: “The choice of car was inspired by students who took part in a workshop. They thought it would be appropriate that the poo-powered car should be the classic VW Beetle Bug because bugs naturally breakdown waste at sewage works to start the treatment process which goes on to produce the energy.”
Wonder what VW has to say...