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Although electric motorcycles may be the green future of motorcycling, they have their drawbacks. Charging takes longer than filling up a gas tank. Range is often short, and it only gets shorter when riding hard. And on top of that, electric motorcycles are relatively expensive for their performance, but that’s the price you’ll pay to leave internal combustion behind.
Dutch DIYer Gijs Schalkx decided to explore an alternate source of eco-friendly power: methane gas naturally released by decomposition in bogs and swamps. He heard stories of a fisherman who collected swamp gas while fishing, and then used the captured gas to cook his food. Schalkx successfully built a homemade rig to try gas collection at a nearby bog, so he started converting a Honda PC50 to run on "slootgas" (methane released from roadside ditches and swamps). The result is a bizarre little vehicle he calls “Slootmotor.” Half motorbike, half methane management, Schalkx’s build makes no attempt to hide its unorthodox fuel in its large rear-mounted tank.
It takes about eight hours of wading and stirring with the gas collector to fill the “tank” of the Slootmotor. Those hours of work return a scant 12 miles (20 km) of riding. “It’s worth it,” says Schalkx. “You can get your own energy, and it does take some work. But then the energy you get is also worth a lot, because you put in your own effort. And then the reward is much bigger than just throwing some money at it, and buying your guilty feelings away.”
The bike makes just under two horsepower with a top speed of around 26 mph. Claimed weight is 182 pounds, while a stock PC50 tips the scales at 110 pounds. The bike's weight could probably be reduced with the use of lighter materials, but there is something to be said for keeping its style.
The Slootmotor started with a conflict Schalkx felt between his desire to ride and his concern for the planet’s health. He doesn’t hide the fact that the Slootmotor requires a little bit of gasoline to start before it’ll run on swamp gas. Even so, he suggests that the bike is still environmentally friendly because it burns methane and releases carbon dioxide instead. Because methane’s environmental impact is many times greater than carbon dioxide’s, Schalkx says it might just be “the most green vehicle in the world.”
That would be a bold claim if Schalkx was one of countless startups and scientists trying to create the fuel of the future. (He doesn’t even consider this practical.) The Slootmotor is more like a rolling art piece that invites discussion about larger solutions to transportation and emissions problems.
“I think we often… believe we can save the world [using] new technology… Instead, I think we are just postponing our issues. Are the things we are proposing as solutions actually solutions, or are they just promises to keep the same lifestyle we are living without feeling guilty about it?”
Read more about Gijs Schalkx and his Slootmotor here.
