The Marvelous Chicken-powered Motorcar!

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Incidentally, the storage of the methane need not be restricted to high pressure bottles. A rubber dinghy, air bed or even giant inner tubes carried on the roof of the car would be just as effective . . . or as Bate says, "Fill your tires with methane and run till they're flat!"

Motoring on methane offers more than the 3¢-a-gallon economy mentioned earlier. Mr. Bate finds that the gas gives 97 to 98% combustion compared to the 27% combustion (with the rest going out the exhaust in the form of carbon and pollution) of gasoline. So there's a definite ecological benefit. Engine wear is also markedly cut since methane, being dry; cannot dilute nor contaminate motor oil in the way that gasoline does . . . and sparkplugs last much longer. "I've taken plugs out of my car after five years and more, and they've been as clean as the day I put them in," says Bate. "My car runs cleaner, smoother and has more power on methane."

To prove his words were no idle boast, Harold took me for a demonstration drive in his famous 1953 chicken-powered Hillman.

When he started the car on petrol and the vehicle broke into a rather lumpy idle, Bate flicked a switch on the dashboard and turned a knob on the steering column. "I've cut off the petrol," he explained. "When the float chamber on the carburetor empties, we'll be running on methane. You'll see the difference."

And I did. In a matter of moments the rather weary 18-year-old engine settled down to a smooth purr and, on a short demonstration run, the bulky vehicle made light work of the switchback lanes around Bates home. Throttle response was incredibly good and there were no flat spots such as are common with carburetion using normal fuel in machines of this age.

"I get five more miles to the gallon on methane than I get from an equivalent amount of petrol," Harold said. "This is because the dry methane has a higher calorific value and there is no waste of unvaporized fluid. Absence of oil dilution and reduced carbon deposits are just bonuses."

Incidentally, all the advantages which methane bestows on an automobile--economy, pollution reduction, longer life and reduced maintenance--are just as evident when the gas is burned in tractors, trucks and stationary engines. Methane produced on the homestead can also be used to heat water, run a refrigerator, cook food, warm a house and do all the other jobs that we now do with natural gas. With a large enough digester and a ready supply of animal droppings, then, it is possible that a family farm might supply all its own power requirements from this one source alone.

Of course, it remains to be seen if such self-containment is desirable. Perhaps we're all better off simply recycling the manure back to the fields, selling the car and appliances and getting a horse. Time will tell. In the meantime, it certainly is possible to construct a methane generator large enough to power a homestead, and Mr. Bate has devised one that utilizes septic tank wastes.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print