1

Otherwise known as biogas energy, 'poo power’ is the result of excess heat recovered from the sewage treatment process. This odd yet unique type of energy source is predicted to work wonders by powering 2,000 new homes on Kingston’s Cambridge Road Estate - all thanks to a new carbon-cutting partnership between Thames Water and Kingston Council.

Sarah Bentley, Thames Water CEO, commented: “Not only do we provide life’s essential service, clean and fresh drinking water to millions of customers every day, but we also create reliable, affordable, and sustainable power by processing sewage. For us, the next stop is net zero.”

2

Ever dreamed of a disco dancing session that could power your kettle? Dutch artist and innovator, Daan Roosegaarde, and his team of designers and engineers have created an interactive dance floor for a nightclub in Rotterdam that generates electricity through the act of dancing.

3

If number twos can power our homes, then why not number ones? Pee power (or, more formally, Microbial Fuel Cell energy system) has been developed by Bristol University and is set to be trialled for the first time in a residential setting. The property in question will be the only home in the world to use ‘pee power’ as an energy source for electricity.

Bristol BioEnergy Centre Director, Professor Ioannis A. Ieropoulos, commented: “There is a real desire for schemes like ours, we’ve had generally very positive feedback as people seem to be open to the prospect of converting waste directly into electricity. For this to become the norm, it will need to form part of new planning and building legislation.”

4

The Ivory Coast has begun work this year on a biomass plant that will run on cocoa waste. Cocoa plant matter left over after cocoa production will be burned in the biomass plant, helping to turn a turbine and generate electricity, much like a conventional fossil fuel power plant. Apparently cocoa does have the power to give us more than a sugar kick.

"This plant alone will be able to meet the electricity needs of 1.7 million people," says Yapi Ogou, managing director of the Ivorian company Société des Energies Nouvelles (Soden), which is involved in building the plant.

5

This invention features solar panels on a canopy over existing highways to help supply green power to the nation. There’s a three-year plan in place to explore how they can cover the 13,000km highway network, but based on the power consumption of Germany in 2019, a solar highway would cover 9% of total power consumption. That’s equivalent to ⅓ of the energy needed to power each and every home.

6

Significant power is able to be generated via crematoriums - in fact, a single cremation is able to power 1,500 televisions. A crematorium in Durham was the first to explore this back in 2011, using the steam released from cooling hot gases in the cremation process to power wind turbines.

7

With more power than just a swift sting, jellyfish could become the next big renewable energy source and are being studied as a possible source of biological solar power. If silicon in solar panels can be replaced with a jellyfish’s green fluorescent protein, this energy-consuming process could be lessened in the future.

Dr Barry Bruce, a professor of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology at the University of Tennessee and a biosolar pioneer commented: “This field needs two to ten times more funding to determine how economically feasible bio-solar technology can be. In the meantime, people think this is the stuff of science fiction. It’s not.”

8

A car powered by Scottish seaweed has completed a 50-mile journey as part of an international project to develop greener fuels. It was part of an EU-funded project called MacroFuels, which has been developing cleaner alternatives to standard petrol and diesel by making biofuels derived from seaweed and algae.

9

Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota doesn’t use a central heating system in its common areas. Instead, the temperature of this enormous shopping centre is cleverly maintained at a comfortable 70°F all year round via three ways: passive solar energy from 1.2 miles of skylights, lighting fixtures and people (more than 40 million visitors generate a lot of body heat)!

10

Methane from cows, which also comes from landfills and coal mines, is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. It’s why researchers in Argentina attached balloon-like plastic packs to the backs of ten cows. Each pack had a tube from the animal’s stomach that collected the gas. Whilst the backpacks are a bit of a novelty, there is a very real opportunity to generate electricity from methane digesters on dairy farms.