Summer is here and so are the power cuts.  How you wished, you had something to bring that electricity back. Or at least make the air conditioner work.

No sweat. A Geneva-based designer Oceane Izard has designed an appliance called, “Poo Poo Power” in which owners place a biodegradable bag of dog waste inside, where sludge-eating bacteria belch out methane that is converted to power.

The electricity is stored in detachable batteries that can be used around the house. The amount of power it produces depends on the dog, according to fastcoexist.com.

“For example, for a German Shepherd, the amount of poo is different from that of a beagle,” Izard said.

For a beagle, it creates between 250 and 340 gms of feces per day. This allows you to run a fan for two hours. For a German Shepherd, it’s twice as much. It could almost run your fridge.
–Oceane Izard

Izard also calculated that if someone wanted to power their homes completely via dogs, they would need six to seven dogs.

The product could save money for cities like Paris, which cleans up around 12 tonnes of dog poop off its streets every day.

In the US, dogs produce around 10 million tonnes of poop each year, and most of that waste goes to landfills which simply pump methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

So, next time you walk the dogs, remember to keep the poop as it might just help you stay cool in summers.

(With inputs from PTI)