A simple knowledge of thermodynamics demonstrates the sheer impossibility of the myth. The last calculation on the first section of the page will suffice: If you have a 1-inch pipe, shooting out pure natural gas at 28 MPH, you would have the equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb in 6 years 9 months. The methane produced in the gut has nowhere near that concentration, so it would have to be blowing much faster. A 1/10 ratio would mean 280 MPH.
I read the page, and don't disagree with the conclusions.
The myth has already been sufficiently clubbed to death.
But if by extension this topic invites us to ask how much energy there actually is, there are some things missing from the analysis. The distinction between farts that burn and those that won't is a huge variation. In the case of farts that don't burn, the easily extracted power may be only what a micro-turbine could produce.
I'm not sure why my comment got negative ratings. It wasn't meant as a troll or flamebait and opens a related area of scientific analysis to the topic.
I think it would also be interesting to ask what could be potentially powered by farts? Is it possible to make a thin fuel cell in underwear that can produce some power? What useful things might be run with the expected amount?
To whoever down-modded me... please try to be a little more open-mined. Otherwise a fart in your general direction...
The assumption is the energy released from farting = 280HP and MPH has nothing to do with it. Also a 280HP engine is measuring the output, thermal energy is easily 3x that.
So a better way to think about it is BTU / seconds * (time) = BTU of an A bomb. If you assume at it's peak a high end fart releases 10x the daily average per second you come to vary different numbers. Basically divide his number by (10 * 60 * 60 * 24) and you get a little over 2 years.
PS: His "average" fart has the energy equivalent of ~9% methane but it's moving a lot faster than 30MPH and it's at more than 1atm (speed without pressure is meaningless).
A simple knowledge of thermodynamics demonstrates the sheer impossibility of the myth. The last calculation on the first section of the page will suffice: If you have a 1-inch pipe, shooting out pure natural gas at 28 MPH, you would have the equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb in 6 years 9 months. The methane produced in the gut has nowhere near that concentration, so it would have to be blowing much faster. A 1/10 ratio would mean 280 MPH.