The Miraculous Energy Source of the Future: Our Poop?

Using the toilet today? In the future, that might be considered even more of a wasteful act, as fuel from human dung could have an annual value reaching into the billions of dollars.

That’s according to researchers at UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, who just released a report on the potential of poop-derived energy. They say the world’s yearly excrement, rendered into biogas, could translate into the equivalent of $9.5 billion in natural gas. Such loads of methane-rich fuel would supposedly be able to power as many as 138 million homes—the number of households in all of Brazil, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.