This is the GENeco Bio-Bug, a methane-fueled VW Beetle cabriolet converted by The Greenfuel Company to showcase yet another alternative fuel possibility. Using "specialist equipment", GENeco processes waste using anaerobic digestion. Basically, anything biodegradable is eaten by bugs that, in an oxygen-free environment, release methane.
In order to make that methane usable as biogas (i.e. work without noticeable side effects), the CO2 has to be filtered out.
The firm claims that the Bio-Bug can run for up to 10,000 miles annually using gas collected from just 70 homes. Also, if it were possible to convert all the gas collected from the Avonmouth location, GENeco says it could potentially use this process to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 19,000 tons.
As GENeco's General Manager Mohammed Saddiq explains, they're working hard at not only giving consumers an alternative now, but also in the future:
"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. We decided to power a vehicle on the gas offering a sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels.
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.
Waste flushed down the toilets in homes in the city provides power for the Bio-Bug, but it won't be long before further energy is produced when food waste is recycled at our sewage works. It will mean that both human waste and food waste will be put to good use in a sustainable way that diverts waste from going to landfill."
By Phil Alex
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