Alpaca dung could provide green fuel
RESEARCHERS in West London have stumbled on what could be a revolutionary if unlikely new green energy source – alpaca manure.
Boffins at the Dung Alternative Fuel Technology (DAFT) centre have found that by introducing microbes to the diet of the South American camelid, they can create dung that can be processed into a fuel that, among other things, can be used to power vehicles.
The research comes as a byproduct of work investigating how to reduce the amount of methane produced by livestock around the world.
While that work has produced some notable success, scientists believe that alpaca dung could be a game-changer.
“We know that the methane produced by cows and sheep is a big contributor to the damaging effect of greenhouse gases,” said Dr Geoffrey Canard of DAFT. “There’s a lot of research looking at reducing the amount of methane that cattle produce and while we were looking at this in alpacas we discovered that their dung has some unique properties.
“We found that alpacas produce a very high level of potassium in their droppings which made us investigate its potential as a fuel source.”
For the last two years Dr Canard and his team at Dunton have been looking at ways of realising the potential of alpaca dung and now they think they’ve found the answer.
“We’ve tried liquidising it and using it in gas form but we’ve found the best way to enable it as a fuel is in pellet form,” explained lead researcher Dr Helen Oaks. “To put it simply, we compress the dung into solid fuel blocks. We’ve found that when these are heated in a special condensing unit, they generate an incredible amount of energy.”
Working with car design engineers, the team have now developed an engine that can use the fuel blocks and vehicle trials are under way at a test track .
“It’s very early days yet, but the early signs are encouraging,” said Dr Canard. “Using an alpaca dung hydro-oxide condensing engine, we’ve now got a car travelling at speeds of up to 30mph on our track.
“We’ve nicknamed it the Poop Mobile and I like to call the system Brownian Motion. But seriously, this could be revolutionary, it could completely transform how we travel.
“What’s great about this fuel is it’s completely environmentally friendly and produces no damaging emissions. We’re calling it brown technology but it is, in fact, completely green.”
Watching the so-called Poop Mobile doing circuits, it’s evident that Dr Canard is very proud of what his team have achieved but he knows there’s a long road ahead before their invention is parked on people’s driveways.
For now, he’s happy that the trials are exceeding his wildest expectations.
“What’s nice is that the herd of alpacas that have supplied the fuel are in the field next door, watching the car do its laps while producing more dung.”
If the trials prove successful and the car passes stringent safety tests, Dr Canard thinks DAFT technology could be on the road within 10 years.
But the big question is if DAFT cars will be burning dung as fuel on our roads, won’t they cause an almighty stink?
“Not at all,” said Dr Oaks. “This fuel may be derived from alpaca manure but when burnt the pellets are almost odourless with just a faint smell of freshly-cut grass.”
We’ve driven Jaguars, Pumas, Cougars and Pandas, now perhaps it’s time to park those old models and make way for the Alpaca.