By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You'd almost think we were swimming in the stuff. First came that Off-Broadway hit, Urinetown, which made the subject downright trendy, and somehow garnished a heap of rewards, if not rashes. And for those who survived Katrina, or who swim regularly in, say, Lake Washington (where more than once I have watched mothers empty their young children's bladders into said lake), maybe you are. Or will be. Urine is everywhere, like it or not, we all produce a lot of it every day (granted some more than others) and just flushing it out of sight is proving less and less viable as a method of disposal.

Granted, it is a completely natural impulse to get rid of the stuff as quickly and efficiently as possible. Urine, of course, is not something we generally want to keep around, for obvious olfactory and other sensory, health-related, and aesthetic reasons. Anyone remember that nationwide drought in the ‘80s? We were all supposed to take fewer showers and there was a slogan we were supposed to use on bumper stickers in regards to flushing and when not to that I won't repeat here.

But now it turns out the stuff may actually be useful. Even valuable! And I don't mean as an emergency disinfectant, which properties it allegedly has. No, I'm talking about a new energy source! This past year scientists at Ohio University have found that urine can be converted to hydrogen with a simple nickel based electrode that can release the four atoms of hydrogen found in every molecule of urea, the acidic main component of all urine. This method offers a way to bypass the currently cumbersome and expensive methodology of hydrogen production and storage that requires extreme high pressures at extreme low temperatures—not something you can do at home.

But the idea that you could soon bypass BP by, well, topping off your gas tank yourself (perhaps the ultimate in “self service!”) offers a lot of convenience, even righteous appeal, if not fodder for crude jokes. And not just to the tailgate crowd. Granted this would be a lot easier for men, I also realize this sounds like an Irishman's pipe dream, or at least pub dream, in a way: a trip to the pub could theoretically provide the fuel to get you home! And instead of smelling up the men's room yet further (or the outhouse, or the neighbor's tree) you just pee in your gas tank (when no one's looking, presumably?) and off you go. Amazing.

And in fact, a fuel cell powered with urine should be able to propel a car a lot further than, say, home from the pub. According to the EPA, a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car is capable of getting 90 miles per gallon or better. But we humans are not, in fact, the worst offenders when it comes to pee production and disposal. And therefore not even the prime potential source for said conversions. According to Prof. Geraldine Botte, one of the developers of the new process at Ohio University, “One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses.” Livestock farmers, for whom animal waste is a major expense and headache at present, would soon be able to convert waste into sufficient energy to power their entire farms, including buildings and vehicles.

The possibilities in all this are staggering, new fodder for late night pundits notwithstanding. It might prove to be the most promising (and obvious) form of recycling yet to be invented. Waste products that currently pollute so much of our world, especially agricultural waste, being turned into biofuel would seem like a no-brainer. As Botte also points out, soldiers, for example, while in the field, “could carry their own fuel.” But then, other great ideas and inventions have also come and gone, thanks to the huge persuasive, legislative, and financial clout of the powers-that-be determined to maintain the status quo no matter what. I can just see BP and Exxon teaming up with Pampers and Cargill to block further progress in this direction. No doubt on spurious health grounds.

Of course developing this “new” energy source would require urinals everywhere, even the ladies' rooms (someone else can work out the logistics for that one), and redirecting all our plumbing, or at least some of it, to hydrogen facilities instead of sewage processing centers. Or the two could be combined. And look how this might offer employment, or at least an outlet, for all those homeless people currently peeing in our parks! And best of all, instead of having to pay to use a public toilet, maybe it could pay you! This could be a godsend for all those cities that still dump sewage effluents into our waterways, as well. If all that runoff could be channeled and funneled into hydrogen, what used to be pollution and literal waste could become not only profitable for cash starved municipalities, for whom waste water treatment and sewage removal is a huge expense, but make our world markedly cleaner (and better smelling) as well.

Next time: methane.

Source: Urine: a 'Clean' Energy Source, by Eric Bland, Discovery News http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/08/urine-power.html

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.