Last month was Carnival time in Rio. Which means lots of partying and lots of sexy women wearing very little and also lots of drinking and peeing. Is the pee thing a buzzkill? Well sorry. You can’t just make people stop peeing. Especially drunk people. Luckily there is a samba-lution to all of this: portable toilets that can actually use pee to power sound systems used for the event.
This is how it works: People pee. The pee flows over turbines, as it might in a hydroelectric plant. The power generated is stored in batteries, which are then used to provide portable power to the sound system. Here is a handy diagram that spells it out for you if you happen to be one of those people who like to not just read about pee power but imagine it in action.
The bad news: Apparently this invention didn’t really make Carnival any less of an energy suck, all things considered. But it did mean there was less pee flowing through the street. Which is great because no one likes dancing in pee.