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The Top 6 Ways to Convert Poop Into Electricity
More than half of the 15 trillion gallons of sewage Americans flush annually is processed into sludge that gets spread on farmland, lawns, and home vegetable gardens. In theory, recycling poop is the perfect solution to the one truly unavoidable byproduct of human civilization. But sludge-based as fertilizer can contain anything that goes down the drain—from Prozac flushed down toilets to motor oil hosed from factory floors. That's why an increasing number of cities have begun to explore an alternative way to dispose of sludge: advanced poop-to-power plants. By one estimate, a single American's daily sludge output can generate enough electricity to light a 60-watt bulb for more than nine hours. Here are the six most innovative ways that human waste is being converted to watts:
Poop-Eating Bacteria
Digesters similar to brewery casks house anaerobic bacteria that eat sludge and belch out methane. This technology is the oldest, cheapest, and most proven poop-to-power method. Even so, fewer than 10 percent of the nation's 6,000 public wastewater plants have the digesters; of those, just 20 percent burn the methane gas for energy (the rest simply flare it off). Flint, Michigan, and several other cities use the methane gas to fuel fleets of city buses. The problem with anaerobic digesters is that they only reduce sludge's volume by half and capture a portion of its embedded energy.
Turd Cell Smashers
Destroying the cell walls in sludge—by heating it under pressure, zapping it with ultrasonic waves, or pulsing it with electric fields—boosts its methane production by 50 percent or more in anaerobic digesters. On the downside, researchers have found that some of these processes can unleash nasty odors and even a "chemical attack" on sewage machinery.
Geological Toilets
Last summer, Los Angeles began injecting sludge into a mile-deep well, where pressure and heat are expected to release enough methane to power 1,000 homes. The well also dissolves and sequesters carbon dioxide that the sludge would normally release, removing the equivalent exhaust of about 1,000 cars per year. "This renewable energy project is absolutely electrifying," Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told the LA Times. "It will save money and make money."
Feces Ponds
As a cheaper green option, some 50 waste plants in 20 countries have installed versions of UC Berkeley professor William J. Oswald's Advanced Integrated Wastewater Pond Systems Technology--large open-air ponds that primarily rely on anaerobic digestion and photosynthesis to break down sludge and convert it into a fertilizer or animal feed of nitrogen-rich algae. The algae in turn can be used as a feedstock for biofuels. Rich Brown, an environmental scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, sees an obstacle in the ponds' huge footprint: "For rural areas it’s great," he says. "For San Francisco it wouldn’t work so well."
Gassifiers
Sludge gasification plants are popular in Europe and especially Germany. A low-oxygen reaction transforms the solids in sludge into a carbon-rich "char" similar to BBQ briquettes. Next, the char is gasified in the presence of air to produce a syngas that can be burned for energy.
Poop Pyrotechnics
Last year, Atlanta-based EnerTech built the world's first commercial sludge "pyrolysis" plant in Southern California. Its patented SlurryCarb process converts sludge from a third of Los Angeles and Orange Counties into char pellets that replace coal at a nearby cement kiln; its ash is mixed into the cement.
One Small Poop for Man. . .
With billions in stimulus funds slated for wastewater improvements, is the time right for poop power? Such efforts, which reduce landfilling and emissions, have earned praise from some anti-sludge groups. Caroline Snyder, the founder of Citizens for Sludge-Free Land, calls it a "win-win situation."
The EPA says sludge power holds promise, but it's not ready to quit pushing sludge as a wonder fertilizer. This hasn’t deterred the sewage industry, which sees a chance to get into the renewable energy business and put a stop to the stream of health complaints and costly lawsuits. "After almost 40 years of working in biosolids," a sewage industry official wrote in a recent newsletter. "I never thought I’d say this: it is an exciting time for sludge!"
H/T to the State of Science Report: Energy and Resource Recovery from Sludge, published by the Global Water Research Coalition. Photo from Flickr user gtmcknight used under creative commons license.
all these are perfect ways
all these are perfect ways to create new energy variety. the most realistic thing is that hope scientists initialize advanced, green, and most importantly i suppose, low cost way for us common people getting close to energy.
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You Left The Best Option Out
tagged as:- solution
These are all great ideas but I'm afraid you left out the best option for dealing with sewage sludge: W2EPC (Waste to Energy Plasma Conversion) can not only turn sewage sludge into energy but can also convert ANYTHING to energy and do it all at the same time. The ideas you've presented, while good ideas, only work with sludge. Why build one plant to process sewage sludge and a second plant to process other wastes (municipal, land fill, medical, haz-mat, industrial, military, construction...... ) when one plant can do it all, do it with zero pollution and zero waste while producing only one byproduct-- energy?
For more on W2EPC take a look at Startech.net
Poop to power
I have long held that the greatest energy resource in our society goes down the toilet. Using data from other biogas projects I designed my own Digester and it is about half complete. The hitch is that my town requires my plan be vetted by an engineer before they will let me finish and start generating biogas. I can't find an engineer with the right expertise to certify my project. I have tried calling local universities and gotten no help yet. I plan to use my biogas to heat water with an Aquastar gas waterheater, If I can find that elusive engineer.
What is the net energy
What is the net energy benefit of using fossil fuels to dry sludge and then to run the dried waste through a gasifier or plasma converter? I wonder if it doesn't consume as much energy in the drying process as is present in the sludge.
net energy
The EnerTech people told me that their process produces about twice as much energy as it consumes. I think there are other processes that claim even higher efficiency, but not all of them are commercially proven.
I think you're confused
tagged as:- solution
Gassification and Plasma Conversion are different in that in Plasma Conversion there is no need to dry the sludge before processing. Even water can be processed in Plasma Conversion.
Here's a video about
Here's a video about research a UT Austin student is doing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GR9t5MKWjc
impressive.. who would have
impressive.. who would have thought that the rectal disposal of one man could be turned into 60 J/s · 60 · 60 · 9 s = 1,94 MJ! Should I now feel bad about taking dumps?
sludge
tagged as:- solution
The issue is important but there's a lot wrong with this story.
First, nothing short of nuclear reactions can "convert poop into electricity."
Second, because land application is a problem--and it surely is!--doesn't mean that incineration is the solution. Sludge incineration produces harmful ash, harmful air pollution ....
The key need is to keep the toxins out of the sewage in the first place. We need to use treatment processes that generate less sludge. Anerobic digestion makes sense in many cases but, as noted, is only a partial solution.
This is going to be a difficult problem to find health and sustainable solutions for. Let's not pretend there's a magic bullet. Doing that puts us down on the same shameful level as the EPA itself.
Alan Muller
Green Delaware
Now The $h*t Really HAS Hit The Fan
Am I the only one who thinks that this is fabulous? It's high time that we transform waste into valuable resources that won't contaminate our food crops or cause further ecological pressure. I'm sure that readers here are well aware that scientists are developing this type of waste-to-fuel technology not just in the human sector (which is surprising enough) but also across other fronts. I just read on a green social network called www.greenwala.com that the Denver Zoo is converting "diverse waste" (aka garbage from 1.9 million visitors each year along with excrement from 4,000 animals) by drying and forming it into pellets and then heating it to power their elephant facility. They estimate that they will ultimately be able to transform about 90 percent of their waste stream into reusable energy!!! If anyone wants to read about the other green strides that the zoo is making, please take a look at this article: http://www.greenwala.com/community/blogs/all/890-Denver-Zoo-Moves-Ahead-of-the-Herd?f=true
Cap-and-Trade Legislation Overlooks Largest Methane Sources
The cap-and-trade legislation is titled “The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.
Here Read:
+ New climate change legislation overlooks a major GHG source: industrial ag / Grist Magazine
–”The bill fails to address greenhouse gas emission reductions from agriculture, factory farms, and animal manure whatsoever–and even goes the extra mile to specifically exempt the entire sector from any type of regulation.”
“Enteric fermentation is literally the largest source of methane emissions in the entire country.”
+ EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program / EPA:
–”Municipal solid waste landfills are the second largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States.”
“At the same time, methane emissions from landfills represent a lost opportunity to capture and use a significant energy source.”
Also read:
+ Beware emissions trading, airlines stand to make billions / Mother Jones,
+ The Carbon Folly / BusinessWeek,
The Case Against Carbon Trading / Transnational Institute:
–”…Citigroup’s Peter Atherton confessed that the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme had ‘done nothing to curb emissions.’ He admitted,‘Prices up, emissions up, profits up …’ Who wins and loses? Coal and nuclear-based generators–biggest winners. Hedge funds and energy traders–even bigger winners. Losers … Consumers!”
Instead of cap-and-trade, the Govt. should set caps on GreenHouse Gas emission, then provide 0-interest loans for companies to Go Green.
Also Read:
+ From Bagels to Coal Fires: An Unorthodox Economist Keeps Pushing for Change / NY Times, 2007:
–”… the abundance of underground coal fires in abandoned mines and other places that not only waste coal but contribute mightily to worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.”
”… underground fires in China alone contribute as much CO2 to the atmosphere each year as all the cars and light trucks in the U.S.”
Humanure
read the book Humanure - humane waste is easily composted and the heat from that process kills all harmful pollutants. I like the idea of making electricity from it though - thats a good one
excellent view
excellent view actually...
thanks for ur post...
Poop Into Electricity? What
Poop Into Electricity? What an unusual idea.
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read the book Humanure -
read the book Humanure - humane waste is easily composted and the heat from that process kills all harmful pollutants. I like the idea of making electricity from it though - thats a good one
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next up? Landfills
It's not hard to imagine a day when landfills will be "mined" for their stored energy deposits. $150/bbl oil turns out to be the best thing that's ever happened.
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–”The bill fails to
tagged as:- solution
- result
–”The bill fails to address greenhouse gas emission reductions from agriculture, factory farms, and animal manure whatsoever–and even goes the extra mile to specifically exempt the entire sector from any type of regulation.”
“Enteric fermentation is literally the largest source of methane emissions in the entire country.”
+ EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program / EPA:
–”Municipal solid waste landfills are the second largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States.”
“At the same time, methane emissions from landfills represent a lost opportunity to capture and use a significant energy source.”
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