In South Korea, students earn digital currency for visiting the toilet

The Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology uses feces to generate electricity. For each toilet visit, students are paid the digital currency Ggool, reports Reuters.

Professor Cho Jae Veon developed the eco-friendly BeeVi toilet. It is connected to a laboratory that uses feces to produce biogas. The biogas powers devices in the building, including the gas stove and the boiler.

“If you think unconventionally, feces have value for electricity generation. I have put this value into the ecological cycle,” said Cho.

According to his calculations, a person produces about 500 grams of excrement daily, which can be converted into 50 litres of methane. This amount of gas yields about 0.5 kW of electricity, roughly the energy a car would need to travel 1.2 km.

The initiative earns students 10 Ggool per day. The coin is accepted as payment in shops on campus.

Ggool is not a cryptocurrency and cannot be obtained outside the South Korean university.

Earlier ForkLog reported that British farmer Philip Hughes mines Ethereum using electricity obtained during the processing of cow manure.

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