Green Options » sewage

Sewage Biofuel Hits the Big Time with Waste Management Venture

Tina Casey — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:44:49 +0000

Industry juggernaut Waste Management is convinced there’s a future in sewage-to-biofuel, and to prove it the company has just joined with the largest refiner in the U.S., Valero Energy Corp., to blend wastewater “crude” into gasoline. The two companies have invested in Terrabon LLC, which was formed in the 1990’s to commercialize three technologies including a biofuel process called MixAlco. With a half-billion people (and counting) contributing to the feedstock in the U.S. alone, it looks like sewage could be the answer to the search for a truly sustainable biofuel.

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More Food Waste to be Turned Into Energy in California

Jeff Kart — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:36:49 +0000

“Clean your plate. There are people starving in Africa.”

That’s what mom always said. But it turns out that leftover food also can feed a hunger for electricity.

A wastewater treatment plant in California is receiving support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to turn more food scraps into energy at a wastewater treatment plant.

The East Municipal Bay Utility District, or EMBUD, project will be the largest of its kind in America, where food waste is the second-largest source of municipal solid waste.

EMBUD already uses anaerobic digestion to turn food waste from San Francisco and Contra Costa County restaurants and commercial food processors into green energy. The facility plans to up its intake of scraps from 90 tons per week to 200 tons per week.

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Anaerobic (without oxygen) digestion works by using bacteria inside the digester to decompose the food. The digester captures the biogas and uses methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to power the treatment plant. What’s left can be used as compost, which is great for San Francisco, which recently signed the first mandatory composting law in the nation.

Anaerobic digesters also are being considered for use at large cattle farms in Michigan, where the waste product is manure. A similar methane-capturing process also is used to create landfill gas.

Tell your mom.

(Image Credit: EPA. In Oakland, California, EBMUD’s main wastewater treatment plant was the first sewage treatment facility in the nation to convert post-consumer food scraps to energy via anaerobic digestion.)

Sewage Sucker Relieves Slumdogs from Manually Emptying Pit Latrines

Derek Markham — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:32:30 +0000

People living in slums the world over are dependent on pit latrines as their only recourse for a bathroom. And when those pits get full, they’re usually emptied by hand, with a bucket, and the feces is often deposited in the nearest body of water, spreading disease and contamination even further. But a machine made partly from recycled car parts, the Vacutug, may help stop that process.

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Human Sewage to Power Buses in Norway

The Guardian Environment Network — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:45:43 +0000

Free, friendly and non-fossil – biomethane from human waste will soon power public transport in Oslo, the capital city of Norway.

It is available for free in huge quantities, is not owned by Saudi Arabia and it contributes minimally towards climate change. The latest green fuel might seem like the dream answer to climate crisis, but until recently raw sewage has been seen as a waste disposal problem rather than a power source. Now Norway’s capital city is proving that its citizens can contribute to the city’s green credentials without even realising it.

In Oslo, air pollution from public and private transport has increased by approximately 10% since 2000, contributing to more than 50% of total CO2 emissions in the city. With Norway’s ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2050 Oslo City Council began investigating alternatives to fossil fuel-powered public transport and decided on biomethane.

Biomethane is a by-product of treated sewage. Microbes break down the raw material and release the gas, which can then be used in slightly modified engines. Previously at one of the sewage plants in the city half of the gas was flared off, emitting 17,00 tonnes of CO2. From September 2009, this gas will be trapped and converted into biomethane to run 200 of the city’s public buses.

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Hydrogen Could Be Produced from Sewage and Dough

Ariel Schwartz — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:48:34 +0000

Hydrogen fuel cells have long been hailed as the next big thing to replace petroleum in cars, but there is one major problem: hydrogen is usually produced from fossil fuels. Fortunately, a multitude of companies are looking at alternative hydrogen sources— including sewage and dough.

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Scientists Say Sewage Can Produce Cheap Hydrogen

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:11:34 +0000

Researchers at Oregon State University have made game-changing discovery in the field of hydrogen fuel cell production. They believe that biowaste— such as simple municipal sewage—can produce hydrogen at a lower cost than traditional electrolysis technology.

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Landfills to Fertilize Biofuel Crop With Trash-Juices

Alex Felsinger — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:13:09 +0000

Two British landfills could soon use their trash’s syrupy excretions to irrigate and fertilize on-site biomass crops.

A developer, Waste Recycling Group, hopes to construct two 18-foot-deep lagoons near landfills to produce fertilizer from the leachate that oozes from the trash piles. The substance will be pumped from the dump into the lagoons where bacteria will eat away at the contaminants. The developer then hopes to use the fertilizer to grow willow coppices at the landfill for use as biofuel.

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In Praise of Poop 3: San Antonio Harnesses Power from Sewage Methane

Justin Van Kleeck — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:55:22 +0000

For this the third entry in the annals of excellent excrement (after cow and E. coli poop), we will have to travel deep down into the heart of Texas…and then even farther down into the sewers of San Antonio. So don your rubber body suit, gas mask, and sense of humor, for sewage is no longer just stuff to be dumped and forgotten.

No, San Antonio is out to prove that sewage, and specifically the methane that it gives off oh so (i.e., too) naturally without any bother or cost to us, can be used as a source of alternative fuel…I mean it is natural gas, after all.

In an Associated Press story reported by CNN on its website on September 11, the San Antonio Water System plans to capture methane gas produced by the 140,000 tons of sewage it handles (sorry…bad word choice there) every year.1 Officials estimate that they will be able to capture as much as 900,000 cubic feet of methane annually from this big old pile of people poop.

But what do you do with nearly a million tons of methane? If you are a high school kid, you might get a matchbook and invite some friends with a camera for a rip-roaring laugh. If you are more mature and entrepreneurial officials in San Antonio, however, you sell that happy-crappy gas to Ameresco Inc., an energy-services company based in Massachusetts, for use as a fuel source.

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San Antonio Generating Gas from Sewage

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:35:26 +0000

San Antonio, Texas is making use of its 140,000 tons of sewage generated each year to capture methane gas. The city’s utility board of trustees approved a contract this week to sell 900,000 cubic feet of natural gas derived from the sewage each day to Ameresco, a Massachusetts energy services company.

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Shit Happens…

Simran Sethi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Editor’s note: OK, we’re usually not so potty-mouthed, but, as you’ll see, it’s perfectly (and literally) appropriate this time around. We’re pleased to have Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh join us as guest contributors, and share with you their series on the surprising journeys of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s a sneak peek at bathroom fun.

What you may not realize, cherie, is that whatever you flush down comes back around. Our waste fertilizes our fields and is pumped back into the waterways that are our major sources of drinking water. Let’s take the journey from toilet to tap, shall we? Oui oui. (We’re affecting French here for a touch of sophistication in a post centering on fecal matter.)

Americans use about 70 gallons of water indoors, every day. About three-quarters of that is used in the toilette—shower, bath, sink, crapper—and over one-quarter is used whisking away our waste. You can cut this water usage by making sure your toilet isn’t leaking, using a composting or low-flow toilet or even displacing the water in the tank with a brick or container filled with sand . Your toilet is not a trashcan, so save cigarette butts, tissues and used condoms for the basket, not the bowl.

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San Francisco George Bush Memorial Sewage Treatment Plant

Jennifer Lance — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:46:34 +0000

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco will ask voters to change the name of a sewage treatment plant on the coast to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. The New York Times explains:

Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

Image: Laughing Squid

Toilet Flushing is Clean Energy?

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:43:30 +0000

Forget building more hydroelectric dams and tidal energy generators … Leviathan Energy has developed a turbine that can generate electricity from the water flowing through municipal water pipes and sewers. The company was among those displaying their innovations during the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco.

Image courtesty of Wikimedia Commons user JSDX