Kenyan teens use poop to power their school kitchen

Students in rural Kenya have developed a biodigester that turns their school's sewage into biogas to power the kitchen.
In rural Kenya, pit toilets - holes in the ground, with no water for flushing - are the most common type of toilet.
At Maseno School, a large boarding school in western Kenya, the sewer system often backed up and contaminated a nearby stream.
Seventeen-year-old student Leroy Mwasaru with a team of fellow students started researching biodigesters - underground chambers that collect waste and use microorganisms to efficiently convert the waste into a renewable fuel.
"We were out to make ours more flexible and better," Mwasaru said.

After the students' idea won at a national competition, Innovate Kenya, they built two prototypes, 'fastcoexist.Com' reported.

One of the prototypes is now in use at the school, sending biogas directly to the school's kitchen, where it provides fuel for stoves.
Earlier, cooking used to happen on wood fires, a process that sent black soot into the cooks' lungs and stripped local forests of trees.
The team is currently working on another iteration of the design that will separate out liquid waste, since pee can make the process less efficient.
Ultimately, they hope to provide the school with plans for a system that can process the waste of all 1,200 students. It will cost around USD 85,000, but may save half that amount in fuel savings alone.