As motorsport attempts to reduce its carbon footprint and become more sustainable, a group of engineers may have developed the prototype for a race car made from sustainable materials and powered by sewage.

More specifically, the vehicle is powered by sewage treatment technology, which involves microbes feeding on waste and producing hydrogen as a by-product. The hydrogen by-product is then used to produce fuel for the car.

The Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), which includes students at the University of Warwick, created the prototype using sewage treatment technology being trialed at Severn Trent Water. The company believes the car could be available globally in as little as five years.

“There’s been a real push for electric vehicles and it’s fairly clear that there has to be other sort of energy in the mix as well, so hydrogen has a part to play,” Dr. James Meredith, chief engineer at WMG, told BBC Sport. “It comes from a long period of research. A microbial electrolysis cell is essentially a device used to clean water, and microbes grow on recycled carbon fiber, eating the sewage. During that process, they produce hydrogen as a by-product.”

The car itself is also made from sustainable materials, including recycled carbon fiber and a wing mirror from beetroot waste. WMG will use the car to try to break several land speed records, including the fastest standing and flying starts over a mile and a kilometer.

Dr. Meredith stated that he hopes the hydrogen technology will be able to produce the same amount of power as petrol despite the various challenges of developing this type of car in a way that’s also suitable for racing.

“Hydrogen is a good fuel. It’s clean burning,” he said. “We’re starting to scale up the process and seeing just what we can do on an industrial scale. So, then in terms of actually running the car on hydrogen in a race, the biggest challenge with hydrogen is the shape of the storage tanks and how much volume it takes up.”