The Marvelous Chicken-powered Motorcar!

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Detroit and the large petroleum interests keep saying it can't be done but a 62-year-old English inventor has already done it. Harold Bate, British chicken Partner and experimenter, has developed a small conversion unit that makes any ordinary automobile virtually pollution-free. What's more (and hang on to your hat for this one), the Bate convertor can also cut your fuel oil, sparkplug and other miscellaneous automobile operating expenses by a factor of ten!

The Bate system accomplishes these amazing feats as naturally as a compost pile by recycling animal droppings and sewage into methane: a colorless, odorless, flammable gas. This means drat, as a bonus, Harold Bates development just may go a long way toward safely and naturally reclaiming the mountains of waste with which "civilized man " seems determined to bury the planet.

Interestingly enough, Bate did not make his noteworthy breakthrough in a well-equipped laboratory or while working on a mufti-million dollar research grant. The convertor and other parts of the Bate system were developed by Harold from odds and ends at hand as he puttered about his 450-year-old cottage and chicken farm in the heart of Devonshire.

To be sure, Harold Bate has invented nothing new in the way of a basic process. Methane has been forming naturally in swamps and waste organic matter since long before man walked the earth and many ingenious experimenters have harnessed this source of fuel in the past (see SOLUTION TO POLLUTION, ELECTRICITY FROM MANURE GASES and HOW TO GENERATE POWER FROM GARBAGE in MOTHER NO. 3). But Harold does seem to be the first to have actually put the whole idea on a workable, homestead, "anybody can do it" basis.

From a 450-year-old cottage in the heart of Devon shire, England, a 62-year-old inventor is selling a remarkable chicken -powered car to the world. Yes, you read correctly. A chicken-powered car . . . for Harold Bate has devised a way of producing automobile fuel from animal droppings.

The secret is methane, a common by-product of the natural process of decomposition and a much cleaner fuel than gasoline. Mr. Bate generates me thane in usable quantities by simply speeding up nature a bit with a pressure "digester" . . . just as an organic gardener speeds up the decomposition of natural matter with a compost pile.

There's nothing complicated nor expensive about the Bate digester. Whereas the large petroleum corporations must refine gasoline in complex, multi-million dollar plumbing nightmares, Harold's methane cooker looks more like a recycled home fruit canner and is small enough to fit into the corner of any basement or garage. Converting a private car to operate on this natural fuel is just as straightforward and economical and--for an initial investment of $100 or less and a little elbow grease--almost anyone should be able to start riding the roads virtually free of charge . . . assuming there's a supply of animal droppings and/or other organic waste at hand.

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