# Chicken Powered Car **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577 "2002-07-30T18:57:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/1 "2002-07-30T18:57:45Z")
Okay, I’ve seen all kinds of things on the use of waste matter to produce methane gas, but I’ve not seen anything like a Chicken powered car that uses methane produced by fermented chicken (and pig) feces. The inventor of the car claims that it’s cheaper to build a unit that processes chicken/pig fecal matter than it would be to build an oil refinery. Given that they aren’t (AFAIK) operations that process waste matter on such a large scale, is this true? Would the start-up costs outweigh the possible profits of such a venture? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/2 "2002-07-31T01:59:55Z")
Oh, great Caesar’s ghost! Don’t let my damned housemate see this thread. He rarely cleans his George Foreman Rotisserie as it is. ---
**Author:** ![WV\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@WV\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WV_Woman)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/3 "2002-07-31T03:44:24Z")
Chicken poop is dangerous. I’m wondering how this Bates guy managed to not get histoplasmosis all this time. ---
**Author:** ![justwannano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ab992/32.png) [@justwannano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justwannano)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/4 "2002-07-31T04:00:51Z")
When we were first maried our landlord lived across the road. He was quite an experimenter. He even wore a Engineers hat 🙂 In cooperation with Iowa State he had one of if not the first methane burners used to burn off gas from hog manure. It was in operation for years. There was not enough methane produced by his small (by todays standards)herd to use the gas for anything practical. The farm house,our little house and his whole hog operation is now buried beneath the eastbound off ramp on the east side of Mt Pleasant Iowa… ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/5 "2002-07-31T06:33:39Z")
Okay, I gotta ask about the hat… was it a hard hat, or was it striped fabric? And… did he wear overalls, too, and have a train set in the basement? Ouch! That joke is so old the Muses are throwing ceramic fruit at me! ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/6 "2002-07-31T11:18:47Z")
There are new [Dung-Powered Power Stations](http://www.guardian.co.uk/renewable/Story/0,2763,717644,00.html) being built in the UK at present. Why not apply the technology to vehicles…? > [@](#): > > “These power stations station operate in Germany and Denmark without a problem so we are hoping we can iron out any problems.” [BBC Story here.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/england/2135431.stm) I, personally, think that shit is definitely under-utilised as a resource. Don’t you think? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicken-powered-car/121577/7 "2002-07-31T18:50:44Z")
Let’s see here, according to the article the place cost: [quote] £7.7m complex\*\*. I’m not sure what the current exchange rate is between pounds and dollars, last I heard I think it was $1.44 to the pound, so that means the plant would cost roughly $11 million to build in the US. No figures on what the operating costs of such a plant might be, but the plant would provide > [@](#): > > 2000 kilowatts of power into the national grid, enough for about 300 homes, will also provide a district heating scheme for public buildings in the small country town. So it can’t be very large. Of course the plant can earn money in three ways: 1) The sale of electric power. 2.) The sale of heat. 3.) The sale of the leftover slurry as fertilizer. Given the huge problems waste disposal from the factory farms, the plant’s low cost construction (I can’t imagine a conventional power plant being as cheap. Nashville spent some $39 million + on a trash fired plant, only to have the thing explode on them recently.), and it’s potential to make money from three different sources, I’m surprised there aren’t more of them in operation.