South Korean Toilet to Green Energy
According to Reuters, a researcher at a South Korean university has developed a South Korean toilet that converts human faeces into energy. As an added benefit, each service provides poopers with a modest amount of digital currency that they may exchange for a cup of coffee or noodles on campus.
When opposed to a typical toilet, the South Korean toilet, BeeVi – a portmanteau of the words bee and vision – initially pumps your excrement into an underground tank, which means it uses less water straight away. Microorganisms then decompose the waste into methane, a useful energy source.
In a nutshell, it’s a fun new way to turn waste into energy.
Faeces can Generate Electricity
“If we look outside the box,” inventor Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), told Reuters, “faeces has valuable potential to generate electricity and manure. I have invested this amount of money in ecological circulation.”
According to Cho, a pound of solid human excrement, the average amount a human poops in a day, may be converted into an astonishing 50 litres of methane gas. It can produce half a kilowatt hour of electricity, which is enough to power an electric car for three quarters of a mile.
Faeces – A Treasure
Cho created a virtual currency named Ggool, which means “honey” in Korean, in the year 2021, when nothing is secure from the realm of cryptocurrencies. Every time you use the restroom, you earn 10 Ggool every day, which you may spend on items on the university’s campus.
Heo Hui-jin, a postgraduate student who has both earned and spent Ggool, told Reuters, “I had only ever considered that faeces are unclean, but now it is a treasure of tremendous worth to me.” He added “I even discuss faeces during mealtimes in order to justify buying any book I want.”