A Home Powered By Guinea Pig Waste

An agronomist couple in Peru is using guinea pig waste to power their home and farm. The couple breeds 1,000 guinea pigs on the farm and use some of their droppings to produce methane that provides electricity for their home. The remaining byproducts of the animals are used as compost for the farm.

With the guinea pigs being fed a special diet of enriched plant waste matter, the process becomes an elegant, self-sufficient system.

Wandering Gaia explains the process:

The small dry pellets that the rodents poo out are fed into a bio-digester that Ulises adapted from a Chinese model – water is added and bacteria metabolise the slurry – to produce methane gas and a dark brown liquid plant nutrient, which he calls ‘Caca Cola’.

The bio-digester. Poo goes into the right-hand hole, biogas rises from the middle hole and the left-hand one produces the liquid plant feed

It’s an incredibly efficient, non-smelly process (it’s buried underground) that produces enough gas for the family’s use (plus more) and litres of the growth hormone to sell.

…A pipe goes from the fermenting excrement mixture to small shed, ending in the inner tubes of tractors and truck tyres. Once a tyre is full, it can be attached to the household gas line, from which the family runs gas-powered lightbulbs, gas stoves and, excitingly, an electric generator. The household powers its electric devices from computers to TV using guinea pig shit.

Wandering Gaia: “Guinea pig power”

[via Trend Hunter]