Monday, 18 June 2012

Car run on human waste

"The Bio-Bug"

The Bio-Bug has been converted by a team of British engineers to be powered by biogas, which is produced from human waste at sewage works across the country.
They believe the car is a viable alternative to electric vehicles.
Excrement flushed down the lavatories of just 70 homes is enough to power the car for 10,000 miles - the equivalent of one average motoring year.
This conversion technology has been used in the past but the Bio-Bug is Britain's first car to run on methane gas without its performance being reduced.
It can power a conventional two litre VW Beetle convertible to 114mph.
"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."
The car is started using unleaded petrol but automatically switches to methane when the engine is "up to temperature".

If the methane tank runs out the Bio-Bug reverts back to petrol.
Around 18 million cubic metres of biogas is produced from human waste every year at Wessex Water's sewage treatment works in Avonmouth, Bristol.

The gas is generated through anaerobic digestion - where bugs which are starved of oxygen break down biodegradable material to produce methane.
However, before the gas can be used to power vehicles it must undergo "biogas upgrading" where carbon dioxide is removed to improve performance.
The Bio-Bug does 5.3 miles per cubic metre of biogas, which means that just one sewage works could power 95,400,000 miles per year saving 19,000 tonnes of CO2.
 "This is a very exciting and forward-thinking project demonstrating the myriad benefits of anaerobic digestion.
"Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars, and the water regulator Ofwat should promote the generation of as much biogas as possible through sewage works in the fight against climate change."
The Bio-Bug emits three tonnes of carbon dioxide in an average year whilst a conventional vehicle emits 3.5 tonnes.
However, the Bio-Bug is carbon neutral because all of its CO2 would have been released into the atmosphere anyway in the form of methane gas.
Conventional vehicles use fossil fuels, a non-renewable, finite source of energy, and the CO2 they emit would not otherwise have been released into the atmosphere.



Wind and solar powered Electric Car

                    
2D Rough diagram of the prototype

The conventional electric car finds the difficulty of charging it after few kilometers but the
wind and solar powered car helps to eliminate this drawback as this car has the facility
to be charged on board due to wind and solar energy. Taking into account air
resistance, the design of the car is such that maximum aspects are taken into
consideration. The sun and the wind energy are utilized to charge battery and generate
the energy to run the car smoothly. Super capacitor helps for ripple free torque during
motion.
The wind and solar powered car has high efficiency and is a maintenance free car. The
car works on the concept of charging and discharging of the battery on board. When the
car runs, the motor consumes power from battery and after certain kilometers it needs
to be recharged. In this car power is generated from wind turbines and the solar plates
and are directed to the battery for the charging. The battery is recharged on board and
the car doesn’t need to be standby for charging.

Wind turbine powered electric car.



Wind turbine powered electric car.




When it comes to crazy-cool engineering, nobody can top ze Germans. If it’s even vaguely plausible, you can bet that some German crackpot inventor has done it. Well, now two Germans – Stefan Simmerer and Dirk Gion – have broken three Guinness World Records in a ... wait for it ... wind turbine powered electric car.
That’s right, an EV that’s powered by a wind turbine, those big robotic looking windmills you may have seen in farms atop hilltops in Scotland or Pennsylvania. Here’s how it works:
At night, Simmerer and Gion park the Wind Explorer – that’s what it’s called – and erect a nifty looking collapsible wind turbine. While they sleep, the lightweight turbine generates enough energy to recharger the Wind Explorer’s batteries. If they’re running low on energy during the day, they can whip out a kite that helps powered the vehicle forward.
Simmerer, Gion and the Wind Explorer have recently completed a 4,800 kilometer (2,983 mile), 18 day trek across Australia where they either broke or established three Guinness World Records: the first to cross the Great Southern Land in a wind powered car, the longest distance travelled in a 36 hour period and the most distance travelled overall in a wind powered car.


You can check out some sweet videos of the Wind Explorer’s journey below.
http://youtu.be/Ftwc7mswMDM