Imperial Auto Body of Rockville

A Car that Ran on Animal Droppings? That's Right!

As we search for new and improved sources for fuels in order to power the world's enormous ground transportation fleet, engineers and scientists worldwide are experimenting with everything under the sun. People use restaurant grease, compressed air, algae and even water to run their vehicles, but have you ever heard about chicken droppings as a source of fuel?

At Imperial Auto Body Of Rockville, we love stories like these and although we haven't heard about cars running on chicken waste in Rockville, MD if it works and can save money, why not give it a try? 

According to a 1971 article in Mother Earth News, British chicken farmer Harold Bate designed a car that runs 100% on animal droppings. If this was a viable concept 46 years ago, why aren't we using it anymore as gas prices have gone up in a huge way since 1971.

Bate created a converter that recycles animal (or human) waste into methane gas, that he claimed was made out of “odds and ends at hand.” In short, using his converter is a fairly involved process, requiring 300 pounds of manure that has to be fermented for a minimum of 7-10 days. So, it's not an easy thing to create the fuel, but once you have it, it will cost you roughly five cents for the equivalent of a gallon of conventional gas.

Once he had a large inventory of methane, Harold had to figure out how to get the high-pressure gas into his vehicle's engine in the precise amount required by the power plants under every operating condition. So, to accommodate his animal waste fuel he invented a 6″ x 5″ carburetor attachment that he named the Bate Auto Gas Converter.

Looking a lot like a model flying saucer that fits between the methane pressure bottle and the car’s carburetor, this setup enables the engine's cylinders to take in the precise amount methane needed to run properly. The only modification made to the engine consists of a tubular jet that's threaded into the choke tube of the carburetor. A series of rubber tubes connects to the Bate converter and then back to the methane bottle for a closed system. It is a fairly simple setup, without a mechanical linkage or other complex series of modifications.

In 1971, Mother Earth News reported that hundreds of people were driving chicken-powered cars worldwide. But Bate’s invention was a fad and eventually failed, because people chickened out when they realized that they needed 300 pounds of fermented manure in the yards to make it happen.

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Sources: Wikipedia, Mother Earth News and Forbes