A Humanure Powered Prius!

 Photo by Thom Watson

Our days as struggling bloggers are over! This morning Toyoto Motors announced an exciting new partnership between their Prius division and Root Simple. Toyota is forming a task force, that includes Root Simple, to explore the most abundant fuel source on the planet: gassified humanure. Toyota anticipates a hybrid methane/electric Prius vehicle in showrooms as early as 2012. “We’re accelerating the research and design process and we predict that methane/electric hybrids will be a major movement in the automobile industry,” said Toyota president and CEO Akio Toyoda.

As part of the pilot program Root Simple will be saving human waste in five gallon buckets–an ordinary dry toilet! The waste will be added to proprietary inflatable bladders located in the basement.

 Photo by Nic Pepsi

Waste will ferment in the bladders for a three week period. Pressure caused by the expansion of the bladder automatically forces the methane into a storage tank located in the garage. Methane is then pumped into a specially modified Prius during the evening hours using a pump powered by rooftop solar collectors.  “Ed Begley’s people are jealous” said Root Simple blogger Erik Knutzen, adding, “I can finally ditch the bike–it’s dangerous anyways with all that slippery paint the city uses to stripe bike lanes with.”

Jenny Craig has signed on as a project partner to develop microwavable entrees that maximize enzymatic methane production, increase fiber and help us all lose those extra pounds. “We’re looking at integrating our brand into the transportation sector,” said Jenny Craig spokesperson, Leonora Bertwhistle. Jenny Craig is particularly excited about the use of agave syrup to replace sugar in the meals. “Agave syrup has been shown to break down into more highly fermentable compounds that will increase the efficiency of the fuel production process,” adds Bertwhistle.

“If this proves economical we’ll be looking at other human fuel sources,” says Knutzen. “If we can harness one end of the human waste output stream, think about the other. What if we could tap into the energy used for speech, typing, press releases and blogging? We could literally power our transportation sector on hot air.”

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10 Comments

  1. Wait a minute, you all are forgetting the most plentiful, renewable energy source there is – Political hot air! Washington DC could be the energy source of the western world!! Just run a hose right off the congressional chambers and power the entire eastern seaboard’s electrical useage. We’ll save enough that it won’t matter how much gasoline our cars use . . .

  2. heh heh i love it. i’m not gonna lie, i was a bit jealous that toyota asked you guys to do this project…and then i kept reading. i love april fools.

  3. Oh man thats funny, I love the way you avoid saying that your contributions to the project are um.. well bagging your own manure. I was hard pressed to think this was a joke problem is it is actually possible. On the other hand it is April fools day… Interesting direction for the auto industry or excellent april fools joke? (by some one who obviously thinks of composting a lot) 🙂

  4. Pingback: Root Simple’s Killer Colon Hydro-therapy Booth Coming Soon . . . | Root Simple

  5. I thought you could probably collect the humanure in a cavity under the seat as you drove, sort of multi-tasking, as it were. I had not worked out how to get your pants down for the deposit.

    Really? Bladders in the basement? You do like to live dangerously. Methane/sewer gas is dangerous and makes me laugh to hear it is/could be right under the house…ugh.

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