July 9, 2007
Booze run
We always assumed that goods confiscated by customs officials - booze, drugs, extensive collections of Victorian erotica - were utilised by said officials as payment for all their hard work.
But the Swedes, naturally, are a far more diligent bunch. Instead of drinking/creating intriguing cocktails with/selling the 200,000 gallons of alcohol they seize each year, Swedish customs officials are turning it into biofuel.
The seizing of booze is a regular occurrence on the Swedish borders. High alcohol taxes mean that whenever the Swedes go abroad, they return with crates and crates of tasty liquor. Which the boys in customs then confiscate and hand over to the biofuel plant.
The booze is mixed with other natural energy sources including - and we couldn't make it up - human waste, then heated with anaerobic digesters to create biogas.
That gas is then used to power Sweden's public transport; at present, a quarter of Stockholm's buses run on biogas or ethanol and there are plans to roll the scheme out further.
It's all part of Sweden's drive to become completely oil-free by 2020. The only problem with the biogas - apart from the smell, obviously - is that there are no pipelines in place to transport it, meaning it either has to be bottled (which is expensive) or live next door to a biogas plant.
Or you could always brew your own: a bathtub, four large bottles of White Lightning and... well, we'll leave the human waste bit up to you.
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