A Japanese scientist could soon become stinking rich with an invention to be ready by 2005 that would use Panda dung to create electricity.

Fumiaki Taguchi, emeritus professor of Kitasato University in Tokyo, embarked on the project five years ago when he asked Ueno Zoo for a bucketful of one of their most popular residents' faeces.

The team mixed the bacteria with 70 to 100kg of raw garbage, such as vegetable stems, for 17 weeks in an industrial waste disposal machine. The result: only three kilograms of waste remained, while the rest had turned to water and carbon dioxide - way above the 80 per cent efficiency of most commercial disposal bacteria.

The outcome is not just soggy gas. Taguchi said the company of which he is a director, H2Japan, hopes to create a hydrogen fuel cell and waste disposal unit in one to sell to food processing companies across Japan.