Urine powered generator? Is this the future?
 

Brings new meaning to "whiz kids."

Urine-powered generator unveiled at international exhibition | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News

Four African girls have created a generator that produces electricity for six hours using a single liter of urine as fuel.

The generator was unveiled at last week's Maker Faire in Lagos, Nigeria, by the four teens Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, and Faleke Oluwatoyin, all age 14, and Bello Eniola, 15.

So how exactly does the urine-powered generator work?
•Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.
•The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
•The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas.
•This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.

And as for delivering the fuel itself? Well, we'll leave that up to the consumer.

The Maker Faire is a popular event across the African continent, drawing thousands of participants who travel to Lagos to show their inventions and other practical creations.

As the Next Web describes it, the Maker Faire is intended to highlight creations "that solve immediate challenges and problems, and then works to support and propagate them. Put another way, this isn't just a bunch of rich people talking about how their apps are going to change the world."

That's a piss poor concept.

Nigeria? It's a scam. ;)

Sounds like a good concept until some multinational corperation, or the government itself, buys it up and shelves it.

Scam.

Where is the energy coming from? Urine doesn't have some large stored amount of energy. The hydrogen is created by electrolosis, which requires energy. It will take more energy to create the hydrogen than the generator produces.

I suspect there is a battery hidden in the Electrolytic cell which they are not showing in the energy balance.

It sounds like that magic carburetor I heard about all the time in the 70s.

"They" had invented a carb that you could put on a Cadillac and get 100 MPG and still have all the power as before. Of course the gas companies all banded together to suppress it. Now remember the average 1970s Caddy was 3 tons of steel with a 454 or bigger engine and was lucky to get 10 mpg.

It was as likely as carbohydrate free pizza & beer that tastes really good.

How much energy is in urine?
Not much. It's almost all salt water.

How much energy is in gasoline or diesel?
Lots more than urine.

How much electricity can you produce for 6 hours using 1 liter of gasoline or diesel?
Not much.

How much electricity can you produce for 6 hours using only a liter of urine?
Prolly not enough to light a 1 watt bulb.
No offense ;)

But, but, but.... if this works....

Budweiser and rednecks would become the new OPEC!

The part they left is is that you have to drink two gallons of gasoline to get the 1 liter of urine to run the generator.

I don't care who you are, that is funny right thar!

Was something about this on one of the episodes of "The Big Bang Theory"....

It must be real, it was on a TV show!

x2... I just laughed out loud in my cube here at work :)

Just imagine the power surge during Oktoberfest!

Even if that generator worked, it would HAVE to be a self cleaning unit. It would get real ripe smelling after a few weeks of use.

The energy comes from the solar cell road that the urine travels on in order to get to the fair.

Would have been better with a fart powered generator.....


How many 14 year old girls from third world countries know anything about electrolytic cells separating hydrogen?

Just sayng

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Now I have had some Shine that I would swear made my piss flammable :D

Piece of piss man. I peed in the gas tank of the WV when we were runnin outa gas and it got us another 20 miles to the next pub.