The Dutch artist’s homemade motorcycle runs on swamp gasoline that he collects himself
Dutch artist, designer, independent engineer and motorcycle Gijs Schalkx enthusiast has a strange way of moving. His bike clearly has some do-it-yourself elements on it, like wood attached to the frame, a small liquid bottle on the handlebars and a balloon housed in a large transparent cylinder tall behind the saddle. car. That balloon – actually a condom – is the bike’s gas tank. You see, Slotmotor, as his name suggests, his motorcycle runs on methane that Schalkx painstakingly harvests from the swamp. Yes, it runs on swamp gas.
Methane is terrible for the environment. It is a strong greenhouse gas, with a lifespan of 100 years global warming potential 28 to 34 times that of carbon dioxide. It is often released from the extraction and production of other fossil fuels. It’s also a byproduct of agriculture – livestock produce methane during their digestion (according to UC Davis, a cow can emit 220 pounds of methane in a year). It is also produced in landfills and rice paddies, and is a by-product of biomass burning. Methane can also appear and enter the atmosphere naturally, without human involvement, in the decomposition of organic matter.
A lot of organic matter decomposes at the bottom of the bogs, which is where Schalkx gets fuel for his Slootmotor (sloot means “ditch” in Dutch). He waded in and scratched the tank at the bottom, releasing air bubbles he had trapped in a bucket that floated upside down on the surface of the water. He then manually pumped it into his condom gas tank and used it to power the bike’s 49cc four-stroke engine. A small vial of liquid attached to the handlebars was the gasoline he used to start the engine when it was cold. Other than that, it’s all swamp gas.
Schalkx calls its Slootmotor the greenest vehicle on the planet, because it ignites methane that would naturally go into the atmosphere. The byproduct of its burning is CO2, which, as we noted earlier, has a much less global warming potential than the same amount of methane, which is why you will often see Methane outbreaks at oil and gas extraction operations and in landfills. And, unlike those stacks of flares, the Slootmotor is actually making that combustion work.
It wasn’t the most labor-efficient way to fuel his bike. Schalkx told Motherboard In the video above, it takes about eight hours to collect enough gas to propel the bike 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). Perhaps as important as having a cleaner form of transport, the project answered a simple question for Schalkx: Is it doable? That answer, apparently, is yes, and he says the first 500 meters he walked using the methane he harvested was the best 500 meters of his life.
“I think the biggest motivation is this idea that every time I order [gasoline] in my motorbike, I’m sponsoring, such as large corporations, their green cleaning campaigns, and I really want to be independent,” he said. Motherboard. He likes the idea that he can find his own fuel, and the extra effort only contributes to the sweeter rewards.
Watch the video above, or visit the Schalkx website to learn more about Slotmotor.
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