Panda Poop Power To Fuel French Zoo

Is panda poop the new all-natural power fuel? Beauval Zoo in France has announced that they will put a new $3 million biogas power plant online in spring 2014, which will reduce their gas bill by 40 percent and allow them to sell some energy back to the local power company.

Oh, and much of the biogas will come from an unusual source — the over 22,000 pounds of panda poop produced by their two giant pandas, Yuan Zi and Huan Huan.

Unlike other bears, the endangered giant panda is a bamboo specialist, and eating the high-fiber vegetation results in a heckuva lot of excrement that’s previously gone to waste. Yuan Zi and Huan Huan are reported to eat about 78 pounds of food a day, producing over 66 pounds of you-know-what as a result.

However, a French-language report in Le Progrés said that the plant will actually use about 24 million pounds of biomass. Even a pair of giant pandas can’t poop that much. Most of the fuel will come from a more prosaic source, the clippings and other vegetation that come from keeping the grounds of a huge 27 hectare zoo well-manicured for its 4,600 animal inhabitants and its annual one million visitors.

But it’s fair to say that the panda poop is the special sauce that makes the Beauval Zoo power plant different from the rest.

With spring in the air, giant pandas have been getting busy all over the world. Canada recently welcomed its first pair of giant pandas in many years. Another pair of pandas in Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo was feeling so frisky that they had to be taken off public view.

A female panda on loan to Washington D.C.’s National Zoo underwent artificial insemination last Saturday. She was ready, but zoo officials said the male was a “clueless breeder with flawed technique.” Youch!

Beauval Zoo officials also intend to attempt to breed their giant pandas.

They hold the only pair of giant pandas in France — and soon the only biogas plant fueled in part by panda poop.

[photo of giant pandas courtesy Chi King and Flickr]