Some California drivers may tool around in poop-powered cars as early as next year.
They can fill up at a sewage treatment facility run by the Orange County Sanitation District, which plans to turn the inflow of excrement and other waste into hydrogen for vehicles that run on fuel-cell systems.
"This is kind of a Holy Grail in the search for renewable energy sources," said Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California's Irvine campus. "This is not something we're at risk of running out of."
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Font:****The program is among the first to mine green power from a brown source. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing for California to derive 30 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, cut greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide by 60 per cent, and increase the availability of fuels that don't contribute to global warming.
"Poop is actually a relatively minor portion of the material coming down the pipes," said Ed Torres, the district's director of technical services. "It's mostly food wastes and other organic materials washed down the drain, and all the paper that's flushed down the toilet."
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