The Power of Sewage

Just doin' my part.. by grub · 2004-03-12 08:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Let me at it after a night of Fort Garry Dark Ale and I'll power a city of 50,000 for 2 full days.

--
Trolling is a art,

Re:Just doin' my part.. by filekutter · 2004-03-12 08:51 · Score: 2, Funny

I"m off to White Castle... soon I will be holding a city hostage!!!! Bwahahahaha!

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I call computer-illiteracy job security
Re:Just doin' my part.. by psichaotic · 2004-03-12 08:52 · Score: 3, Funny

Man, sewerage is bad enough... Whats leftover from the waste? Super waste? and maybe you could do something with that... and then have super duper waste? So that eventually a leak in the pipes can wipe out half the city? Does this mean we will have to equip each house with high powered turd cannons to shoot last nights dinner into the sun?
Re:Just doin' my part.. by Marc+Desrochers · 2004-03-12 09:02 · Score: 4, Funny

So, are they going to wire the toilets to the power meter and reduce your rate accordingly?
Re:Just doin' my part.. by RLW · 2004-03-12 09:40 · Score: 5, Funny

The FDA needs to get with the Energy Department and add labeling that indicates the average Kw out put per serving on your favorite foods.

Eventually 'Power Diets' (copyrighted by me here and now :-) will arrive; these will be geared toward symbiotic foods stuffs that eaten (and crapped) together produce the best power for you home. Yeah!

Electric Bran Flakes! - the cereal that makes you regular and powers your day!
Re:Just doin' my part.. by Shakrai · 2004-03-12 11:18 · Score: 3, Informative

As yet his design is only producing a tenth of what he calculates its potential power output could be. Even so, if scaled up, this system would produce 51 kilowatts on the waste from 100,000 people, Logan says. He hopes to be able to boost its efficiency by increasing the surface area of the anodes or by finding more efficient anode material.

Hmm... that works out to about 0.51 watts per person. If he attains his promised tenfold increase it's a whole 5.10 watts -- or just about enough to charge my cell phone.
Not saying it isn't cool but where's the value in this? To quote another line from the article:
Many developing countries urgently need sewage processing plants, for example, but they are prohibitively expensive, largely because they use so much power. Offsetting this cost by producing electricity at the same time could make all the difference, says Bruce Logan, who led the development team at Penn State.

Do they really think producing a whole 5.10 watts from one person's output is going to do anything? True it'd be neat to see that electric folded back into the grid (that's 5.10 watts that doesn't have be generated by burning coal or gas) but is this really going to pay for itself? I'm willing to bet that most sewage treatment plants use more then 5.10 watts per person's amount of waste.

--
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.

America.. by msimm · 2004-03-12 08:50 · Score: 5, Funny

The most powerful country ever!

--
Quack, quack.

Re:America.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 08:54 · Score: 4, Funny

"My opinion is subject to change without warning."
Sen. Kerry? Is that you??
Re:America.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 08:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, it's the combined spirit of the ghosts of Polititians Past, Present and Future.

Besides, anyone who can't change their mind after being presented with new information has no place in office.
Re:America.. by CHaN_316 · 2004-03-12 09:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

" ...this system would produce 51 kilowatts on the waste from 100,000 people"

United States 146,583.9 kilowatts
India 533,011.5 kilowatts
China 672,571.3 kilowatts

Clearly, China is the all powerful nation :D

Ha ha, Amerika, your spacious country is dangerously underpopulated! j/k.

--
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Re:America.. by inteller · 2004-03-12 09:22 · Score: 5, Funny

yes, but big fat americans can crap out bigger turds faster, so 1 american is equal to about 4 chinese.
Re:America.. by then,+it+was+nigh · 2004-03-12 09:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

"My opinion is subject to change without warning."
Sen. Kerry? Is that you??

No, it's George Bush.

--
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
Re:America.. by ajs318 · 2004-03-12 09:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

That isn't actually as much as it sounds. 51kW for 100k people is only 510mW per person. Yeah, just over half a watt. Now if a person eats 2000 calories a day, that's 8320 kJ in 86400 seconds, or about 96 watts. Which gives us an efficiency of about half a percent.

--
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Re:America.. by msimm · 2004-03-12 11:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

It looks like more people took offense to this then I'd imagined. I was joking, but think about it a little. Americans may not 'all be full of shit' but as a wealthy consumer nation I think it would be hard to argue that we don't produce a good deal of solid waste.

Moderation +1
60% Funny
20% Overrated
10% Flamebait
Extra 'Funny' Modifier 0

My extra karma modifier didn't even bother to take effect! You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. ;-)

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Quack, quack.

I'm cheap... by loserbert · 2004-03-12 08:51 · Score: 2, Funny

but eating all those eggs and onions to power the house just isn't worth the stomach aches.

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[ Don't reply to this ]

Well THAT explains... by goldspider · 2004-03-12 08:51 · Score: 4, Funny

...why the campus always smelled like shit!

Seriously, I went to school there. I thought it was all of the surrounding farmland that contributed to the odor, but this is indeed news to me!

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"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy

What if.. by Trystansr · 2004-03-12 08:52 · Score: 5, Funny

you go on vacation or something? Would you have to pay someone to come over and use your bathroom to keep the fridge running?

Re:What if.. by drooling-dog · 2004-03-12 09:50 · Score: 4, Funny

I just want something I can shove up my ass to keep my laptop running...

EA, eh? by Apostata · 2004-03-12 08:53 · Score: 4, Funny

Quote: "Hey, it seems that EA will have to create a new building for Simcity!"

Or at least have the raw materials for another of their games...

--

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker

So much for... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 08:54 · Score: 5, Funny

..."clean" energy sources.

slightly different approach.... by tanveer1979 · 2004-03-12 08:54 · Score: 4, Informative

I am aware of Bio-Gas plants which are used in villages in India. The Animal waste is dumped into the "pit" Methane is released and it is used for cooking. But I guess this method is more efficent.
Good for farms where lot of animal waste is there

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Re:slightly different approach.... by robslimo · 2004-03-12 09:16 · Score: 3, Informative

If you have an all electric house (many do) then your central heat and air or baseboard heaters would get pretty close to that range. Add in hot water heaters and electric ranges, then YES, it's very easy to hit that kind of usage.
Re:slightly different approach.... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 09:31 · Score: 2, Informative

That's not entirely fair. My house used a lot of air conditioning and we averaged 2kW last year (1500kWh/month).
Of course the power generated here would probably be used to run the treatment plant itself. As the article says, may people can't afford the power to run such a plant, so a self powered one could really help.
Re:slightly different approach.... by qtp · 2004-03-12 10:51 · Score: 4, Informative

Locate the plant where the waste is being treated, like they do already in Lithuania Germany and Oregon.

You are already moving the sewage around as it is, so that expense is already there. The waste output of the biogas fermener is much safer than the sludge that existing sewage plants produce, and it can be further composted to produce safe, high quality, organic fertilizer.

There are also existing farm waste facilities (as was previously discussed here on /.) and existing technology to tap land fills in the same manner. It's energy that can be easily converted to a usable, transportable form (electricity) that wopuld otherwise go to waste. The gasses that are being converted are greenhouse gasses (mostly methane) that are not readily sinkable, and the waste products from the fuel cell are only (easily sinkable) CO2 and water.

The other implication of this technology that is less spoken about is that it decentralizes the source of energy away from the fossil fuel companies and spreads the profits closer to the community where the energy is being produced, either through lower costs for waste treatment, or through direct profit from the sale of the electricity if the facility is privately owned. This means lower costs for energy and lower trade deficit.

It's a winning situation for those who live in communities that take advantage of this, and the only people who lose out are the energy companies.

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Read, L

Yes but... by paul_pick1 · 2004-03-12 08:54 · Score: 5, Funny

The waste you flush down the toilet could one day power the lights in your home.

Well, yes, but it would be pretty shitty lighting, wouldn't it?

--
http://www.switch2firefox.com/

It seems Tom Lehrer was right... by Rexz · 2004-03-12 08:55 · Score: 5, Funny

Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Electricity from Waste by eples · 2004-03-12 08:55 · Score: 5, Informative

Something similar has been around since the 50's called "digesters" that use natural waste and the methane byproduct to power generators. It may have been invented at Penn State as well, but they are expensive so there are only about 20 of them around the country.

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I'm a 2000 man.

Re:Electricity from Waste by ross.w · 2004-03-12 09:15 · Score: 5, Informative

IAAWWE (I am a wastewater Engineer)

Actually most sewage plants have a digester in them (or several).

Most Sewage Treatment Plants that have anaerobic digesters (the kind that produce methane) simply flare the gas off, because the quantity of gas produced doesn't warrant the expense of setting up to re-use it.

Seafield Sewage Works in Edinburgh, Scotland does though. It was completed in 2000. If you fly into Edinburgh airport over the Firth of Forth, you can see a row of six large pink tanks near the docks. These are the digesters at Seafield. (The reasons why they are pink are complex and architectural, not functional).

Bondi STP in Sydney used to re-use methane for generating power the 1960s, but the the technology was primitive, and the sulphides in the gas made the engines expensive to maintain and they were abandoned.

Now in Australia, with green energy credits on offer, many water authorities are having another look at making use of their methane.

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If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Re:Electricity from Waste by Flunitrazepam · 2004-03-12 09:33 · Score: 2, Funny

"IAAWWE (I am a wastewater Engineer)"

I wish I was too, that is a great pick up line

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1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
Re:Electricity from Waste by ross.w · 2004-03-12 09:48 · Score: 4, Funny

You have no idea how descriptions of my work can kill dinnertime conversation.

I have often found myself having business lunches and having to change the subject, having realised what we were loudly discussing in a crowded restaurant.

--
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Re:Electricity from Waste by kfg · 2004-03-12 10:06 · Score: 4, Informative

Digesters have been around for about 100 years. During WWII with gas rationing they became quite common, one version even coming on a trailer you could pull behind your car while collecting manure, and then run your car from.

During the gas crunch of the 70s digesters popped up all over the place and there was hardly an issue of Mother Earth News that didn't have some new design/application of a digester featured in it showing how you could power your farm/homestead on shitty methane.

There are still thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of digesters scattered across Americas rural areas. Virtually all of them are built by the owners out of scrap materials for nearly nothing.

Perhaps there are only 20 of this expensive commercial variety. A lot of companies like to make money by taking old ideas that people in general have forgotten about, plate them in chrome, and sell them as the latest technology for a premium price.

Go to the library. See if they've got back issues of Mother Earth News from the 70s and 80s. Lots of good digesters ideas in there, although often a bit crudely implimented.

The mere idea of excrement for fuel energy goes back to God only knows how long. It's certainly prehistoric. The Plains Indian relied on Buffalo Chips for fuel, and the Indian Indian still does today.

Latrine Officer was one of the most important posts in Napoleon's army. His job? To retrieve human excrement. It was too valuable an energy source to waste. They used it to be able to make their own gunpowder as they traveled, which is one of the reasons that Napoleon's armies seemed to be able to pull off almost magical feats of translating themselves from one location to another and arrive ready to fight.

Shit is energy. We know that. We've always known that. We've known that that energy can be extracted as natural gases and used to run combustion engines and turn electric generators for over a century. It's news so old it's boring.

It's even a reasonably viable way to go about making energy, if you live on a small farm with lots and lots of animals producing lots and lots of shit you need to do something with.

For city dwelling humans, well, it will never be anything more than a suppliment to other forms of energy. Something you can use because it's there, but nothing to be relied upon.

Why? Well, how much did you shit today? Does that amount of shit convert into the electricity you used?

Not even close.

You'll need a lot of other animals who don't watch TV shitting for you as well. Like on a farm, say.

And nevermind the fact that most of the shit (including human) is more valuable as a fertilizer (which is where much of the treated sewage is going right now) than it is as a fuel, so you're invoking the whole food for fuel argument. It may be better to burn that fuel we can't eat, or use for food production, and eat the fuel we can.

KFG
Re:Electricity from Waste by MachDelta · 2004-03-12 10:54 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, I can really see that one working on the ladies.

"Hey baby... EEYYAAAAAWWEEEEHHEEEEE!!"
Re:Electricity from Waste by qtp · 2004-03-12 11:49 · Score: 2, Informative

And nevermind the fact that most of the shit (including human) is more valuable as a fertilizer

The biogas fermenters produce fertilizer as well as gas, and it's much higher in nitrogen content than if it had not been reduced in the fermener.

It's not an either-or proposition.

The using the fuel cells to convert the energy is far more efficeint than burning natural gas. Even the most efficient gas burning plants (gas turbine engines driving alternators for generation) are only 40%-45% efficient (at most 45% of the energy contained in the natural gas is converted to electricity) while fuel cells currently available are capable of converting 85% of the energy available in natural gas to electricity, and the rest is converted into heat, some of which can be used to accelerate the fermentation process, or to heat the facility.

Why? Well, how much did you shit today? Does that amount of shit convert into the electricity you used?

So maybe I only shit out about half a watt today, but over the years that adds up, and in total, the city I live in shit about 773,000 watts, in a year that's 282,145,000 watts that might just keep my sewer bill from rising.

It may be better to burn that fuel we can't eat,

As I noted above, burning is a very inefficient method of converting chemically stored energy to a useful, transportable form. Fuel cells are far better at generating electricity than the power plants we now rely on, which first need generate heat (and lose a fair portion of it up the flue), then pressure, which is redirected into torque, which moves an alternator. Every step of the process loses energy either through conduction or to friction (or both, steam has friction too). Fuel cells are able to be more efficient due to a more direct path by which the energy is converted directly from chemical energy to usable electricity.

and eat the fuel we can.

Use the compost produced by the fermenter to fertilize the fields (after first using the excess heat produced by the fuel cell to accelerate a secondary aerobic decomposition at 145 degrees F). It will be a highly efficient fertilizer due to the removal of much of the carbon during fermentation, leaving behind readily available "fixed" nitrogen that plants can use. Reduced dependance on chemical fertilizers and safer fertilizer than is currently produced from sewage sludge.

These ideas bring the community (and man) back to being a part of the environment in which he exists, a part of nature as opposed to battling against it. If we can reduce our impact on the environment and get it to pay for itself, then this is a winning proposition.

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Read, L

In Related News by MooseByte · 2004-03-12 08:55 · Score: 2, Funny

SCO stock skyrockets.

bright idea by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 08:56 · Score: 2, Funny

light comes on unexpectedly...okay, who farted?

Re:Nice sig by msimm · 2004-03-12 08:56 · Score: 2, Funny

Lighten up, you'll live longer. ;-)

--
Quack, quack.

BOFH by dJCL · 2004-03-12 08:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Well, I guess the Bastard will have to see about suing some more people. I may have to see about a lawsuit myself....

Enjoy!

--
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!

Not with my excrement... by dj245 · 2004-03-12 08:57 · Score: 5, Funny

If they try this with my excrement without a proper licence, I'll sue! Licences for my intellectual property can be bought for just $699. Sure, its shit, but its my shit. I thought about it, and my efforts went into creating it. Bofh Link

--
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

Eat your bean! by RDosage · 2004-03-12 08:58 · Score: 5, Funny

"Dear, break out the refried beans, the lights are flickering again!"

Oh, great.... by Dark+Paladin · 2004-03-12 08:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Now we're going to have a war to liberate the sewers....

--
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel

Shit Happens, but .... by BrownDwarf · 2004-03-12 08:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

.... so do lots of other things. What happens when someone flushes a pint of paint thinner or weed killer or heavy metal organic compound down the old toilet?

Out to make a buck by Nick+of+NSTime · 2004-03-12 08:59 · Score: 3, Funny

This reeks of profiteering. We're to be overcome by the stench of people out to make a buck. We work our asses off while fat cats, flush with our hard-earned money, sit on their thrones and pooh-pooh the more environmentally sound ideas. I won't let them dump my money into their porcelain ideas.

Reminds me of an article in Discover by MrPoopyPants · 2004-03-12 08:59 · Score: 5, Informative

This article got me pretty excited about the future of waste/energy. I'd love to see those piles and piles of junk and biowaste turned into useful energy.

The conspiracy theorist within me fears that these types of technologies will not take off because oil companies have so much power.

Re:Reminds me of an article in Discover by teeker · 2004-03-12 09:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah it was the thermal depolymerization (TDP) process...supposedly perfected by some company called Changing World Technologies...

I thought that plant next to the turkey-processing place was supposed to be running by now..has anybody heard any follow up on that? You'd think it would be bigger news if it was operating as well as they said it would...

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teeker
Re:Reminds me of an article in Discover by the_2nd_coming · 2004-03-12 10:58 · Score: 3, Informative

yeah, it was mentioned on Fox news by some Democrats complaining about how money was being "wasted" to turn Turkey parts into energy.

AFAIK it works, and it works even better for stuf like oil sand, allowing the processing of the petrolium products from the sand which was never possable before.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Plumber = Electrician? by mighty_mallards · 2004-03-12 08:59 · Score: 2

So what happens when the toilet backs up?

:)

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You find this humorous, centurion?

Biomass by apoplectic · 2004-03-12 08:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

Biomass technology (energy produced from waste) has been around since the 70's. Though more specific and more refined than its predecessors, there's nothing revolutionary about this.

Re:Biomass by greenstork · 2004-03-12 09:11 · Score: 2, Informative

Except up until this time, it took more energy to process waste than you got out of it.

Bio Plants in the UK by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 08:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Don't ask me why I remember this but I can remember a peice on the local news about this a couple of weeks ago, apparently the output (as in eletrical) from the bio-gas is only used to power the rest of the 'farm' and pumping as it stands, but it's hope they could make a contribution to the National Grid eventually.

Somehow I don't think this will replace the >25% of output we currently get from nuclear plants set to expire over the next decade.

If only we could shit uranium.

Atomation Killing Good Jobs! by pavon · 2004-03-12 09:00 · Score: 2, Funny

So what does this mean for the job security of this guy ?

Biogas by GillBates0 · 2004-03-12 09:03 · Score: 3, Informative

India's been using cow dung and other cattle waste to make biogas for a while now. The greatest benefit is that it's clean and a renewable energy resource.

Biomass Energy is produced by burning the solid Biomass fuels (green plants, agricultural residues, carbonaceous waste, wood etc). Direct burning of Biomass in an efficient manner causes the energy loss. But through Gasification programme , Biomass is converted in to high quality of gaseous fuel through Gasifier power plants. In the Biomass Gasifier , Biomass (a solid fuel) is converted into gaseous fuel, called producer gas formed through a series of thermo chemical process. The producer gas mainly consists of carbon-monoxide, hydrogen and nitrogen gas. The gaseous fuel energy is used in several applications.

Another reason not to eat beef! Let 'em live and generate shit...err energy.(Just kidding, it's a joke, laugh).

--
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam

Article is based on a false premise by HotNeedleOfInquiry · 2004-03-12 09:03 · Score: 2, Informative

The permise is that sewage treatment plants need external power to run the aeriation blowers. The reality is that many plants use methane from the digesters to fuel engines that run the blowers. Old, simple technology that's relatively cheap and bulletproof.

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"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...

Re:Article is based on a false premise by the_2nd_coming · 2004-03-12 11:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

huh? it is not running off any premis except that it is digesting the materials like the processing plant, but rather than letting that electron rejoin its friends when it is released, they create an anerobic environmnet which allows them to capture it, which creates a voltage diffrence in the anode, which they can use to make power....the methane gas can still be used to power the other processes in a treatment plant as they are already.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Old News for those in rural areas by backtick · 2004-03-12 09:05 · Score: 4, Informative

http://www.energy.state.or.us/biomass/digester/dig estech.htm

Lots of places have these; I see someone say "There are only a few in production" fairly often, but this is incorrect; there are more and more every year. Dairy farms are using them in large numbers, but the city of portland has a fairly large one (see http://www.energy.state.or.us/biomass/fuelcell.htm )
that processes the residue from 82 million gallons of wastewater a day.

As an example of the economics, see:
http://www.eco-farm.org/sa/sa_dairy_synopsis _diges ter.html#eco

Payback in 6 years. Not bad, considering lots of places give grants, as these help cut down on groundwater pollution. You can have payback in 3 years, and then start making money on the juice you sell.

Re:Old News for those in rural areas by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-12 09:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Right!

About 10 years ago there aws a pig farm just down the road from my grandmother's farm. He ran all the pigshit into a "shit converter" and generated enough methane to run a 10 Kwatt generator that pretty much ran the entire farm. He was still connected to the grid for emergencies and peak demand.

Interestingly enough, anaerobic digestion gets you methane; aerobic digetsion gets you methyl alcohol. So he ran two converters; one supported aerobic digestion so that he could get methyl alcohol to run his tractors. Whatever solids were left went onto the fields that grew the food that he fed to pigs that generated shit... nice closed system.

Disclaimer: I am not a chemist; all of this came from about a 2 hour talk with him about how his farm worked.

Another Version of This Concept by G4from128k · 2004-03-12 09:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

We discussed a similar high temperature conversion in the past. This alternative process uses high temperature/high pressure water to crack a wide range of complex molecules into simpler stuff. It can convert sewage, toxic waste, and animal byproducts into a mix of combustible hydrocarbons, salts, and water.

The new Microbial Fuel Cell method sounds interesting, but I bet it fails in the field. I'd bet that nasty substances (the odd pulse of heavy metals, detergents, or drain cleaner) would poison the microbial catalysts in this new fuel cell.

--
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

Re:Another Version of This Concept by dbIII · 2004-03-12 12:38 · Score: 2, Informative

I'd bet that nasty substances (the odd pulse of heavy metals, detergents, or drain cleaner)
It's simple, like the current methods it will not be a one step process. Floculation and gravity seperation can get rid of heavy metals, and high concentrations of petroleum products or detergents can be dealt with too.
Some oil companies use various bacteria to deal with their waste water, and they have methods to stop spills into their waste water system from killing all their bacteria.

Mixing Stories by 1WingedAngel · 2004-03-12 09:08 · Score: 2, Funny

So, if I they use my waste to power the "broadband over power lines", I can get bandwidth for shit?

Master Blaster Run Barter Town! by enrico_suave · 2004-03-12 09:09 · Score: 4, Funny

heh... Mad Max 7 Way Beyond Thunderdome

e,.

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No way! by Tom7 · 2004-03-12 09:15 · Score: 2, Funny

Man, this is like when they tell us to drink our own purified urine.

I, for one, will not use electricity with poo in it!

Uh. by bad+enema · 2004-03-12 09:18 · Score: 5, Funny

That idea sounds pretty shitty if you ask me.

bad idea by ocularDeathRay · 2004-03-12 09:19 · Score: 2, Funny

this makes me think back to when I was young and my parents took me on a tour of a nearby dam where our electricity was generated. I thought it was a lot of fun. I shudder to think of the psychological effects of taking a small child on a tour of these power plants of the future.

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Obama is a twitter sock puppet

Re:I don't think this is any new. by FooAtWFU · 2004-03-12 09:21 · Score: 2, Informative

The local wastewater treatment plant has generators to produce electricity from the gas they collect. But, as I was informed while on a tour of the facility, they don't use them. It is actually cheaper for them to buy electricity from the power company than to use these generators which they already have in place.

This says something about the cost-effectiveness of current electricity solutions.

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The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.

Why EA? by BigZaphod · 2004-03-12 09:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Shouldn't Maxis be the ones adding stuff to their games?

--
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch

Not Clean Power by StrandedOrg · 2004-03-12 09:22 · Score: 2, Funny

I don't think this qualifies as "clean power".

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Stranded.org

Re:The Aroma by dasmegabyte · 2004-03-12 09:23 · Score: 2, Funny

It would still smell better than a rendering plant...or this one UNIX admin I worked with...

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Hey freaks: now you're ju

I work in the sewage industry and this is old news by Phelan · 2004-03-12 09:26 · Score: 3, Informative

We have been making power with sewage for a very long time, methane harvesting to run generators has been around for years, plants can power their equipment plus sell some surplus...
or with our product they can do it at a rate that is up to 60% more efficent...
Shameless plug: Premier Agritech, Inc.

--
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"

Re:DILBERT was a prophet by Webmoth · 2004-03-12 09:28 · Score: 3, Funny

"...Dilbert's Dream of passing IP packets via the sewer system..."

Wouldn't that be IPoo packets?

--
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.

A miniature Von Roll fluidized bed by og_sh0x · 2004-03-12 09:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

Von Roll has a similar technology called a fluidized bed incinerator which is used to incinerate all sorts of waste, including human waste that is up to 70% water. This is currently being built at the Metropolitan Wastewater Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is already in use in many other places to process organic wastes such as from corn and turkey processing byproducts.

The system essentially works by heating up tons of sand being blown around in a large cyclone tower, and injecting the fluid waste into the whirling vortex. A lot of energy is required to heat up the sand to start the process, but after which the system generates enough power to power the entire treatment plant, and sometimes then some. More info in the white paper.

Reality check by Spamalamadingdong · 2004-03-12 09:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

51 KW from 100,000 people = 0.51 W/capita.

You're not going to run even one room light from this. You could use it to keep your cell phone and PDA charged, but you could probably do that just as well with generators in the soles of your shoes and gain mobility in the bargain.

(Yeah, I know everyone's playing this for yucks. You can see me as a wet blanket or a straight man, your choice.)

--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist

Conflict scenario... by moviepig.com · 2004-03-12 09:45 · Score: 3, Funny

"Sewage power!"

"Wind turbines!"

"Sewage power!!!"

"Wind turbines!!!"

. . . - The Day the Shit Hit the Fan...

--
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly

So all a terrorist would need to do... by blamanj · 2004-03-12 09:50 · Score: 2, Funny

...to shut down a city would be to flush a bunch of antibiotics down the toilet.

Biogas is tripleplus good by Jeremiah+Blatz · 2004-03-12 09:58 · Score: 3, Informative

First of all, it converts waste product into electricity. But secondly, instead of sewage decomposing into methane, it decomposes into C02, which is a much less effective greenhouse gas. Additionally, the resulting by-products make a good, smell-free compost.

Here's a blurb about a biogas plant in Oregon

There is no Maxis by Perianwyr+Stormcrow · 2004-03-12 10:01 · Score: 2, Informative

Just like there's no Bullfrog or Origin.

EA has eaten them all.

--

What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

Decentralize the power grid and generate your own by kenjib · 2004-03-12 10:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

I would like to see all kinds of technologies that allow private parties to generate electricity become more prevalent. You can decentralize the power grid and open it up as a peer to peer trading network. It's the logic of the internet applied to the outdated logic of the power grid.

Put solar, wind, sewage treatment, and other types of generators in your house. Use what you need and trade what you don't. If you've got a shortage then buy back what you need. In January, south africans can sell solar generated energy to russia. In june, russians can sell it back. Private and commercial ventures alike can create power in large amounts by any means and then sell it in the free market directly to end users and other public entities with large energy demands that are all then free to buy from the lowest cost sources.

Hydrogen fuel cells will also help enable this by allowing the banking of energy for later use and/or trade. Superconductors can improve the efficiency of the whole system and help the private sector economics reach critical mass. Are all of these kinds of technologies going to inevitably converge toward an energy revolution? Between all the bits and pieces it really looks like something is going to come together...

OT question: Why not dual flush toilets in USA? by tetranz · 2004-03-12 10:09 · Score: 4, Informative

In my former part of the world, nearly all toilets in homes are dual flush to save water. They have two buttons, one gives a half flush, the other a full flush. Its not rocket science to figure out when you need which. An american visitor had not seen this before.

Now that I live in the US, I wonder why such technology doesn't exist here. It seems like a much better way to save water than the problematic 'low flush' toilets common the US.

Not a completely new idea by Stonent1 · 2004-03-12 10:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

When I was a kid, my dad worked as a mechanic at a sewage treatment plant. After the sewage comes in, it passes through a system called a digester where it sat. The fumes which were collected were mostly methane gas, that was pumped into giant diesel engines that ran generators that ran the digestion system that ran the engines that ran the... Oh dear I've gone cross-eyed. There was still some solid waste left behind however. It was loaded into large spreaders and spread out on large fields and then flattened out to dry. Though about 90% of the stink had gone local residents still complained. So they came up with an industrial perfume called Roto-ban that was sprayed on top to cover up the smell. Shortly after more people complained about the smell from the perfume than the waste, so they stopped using it. What was left over was collected and sold as industrial fertilizer. You could not legally (in the US) use it to fertilize vegitation used for human consumption, but you could use it to fertilize food used for animal consumption (and then they could legally sell the animals as food). So basically HAHAHA (pointing) You eat turds!

Phewey Lewis and the News: the Power of Sludge by goodmanj · 2004-03-12 10:24 · Score: 2, Funny

The power of sludge is a curious thing
Make one man reek, and another man stink
But take some sewage, just a little bit o' fudge
More than a nuisance, that's the power of sludge

You don't need diesel, don't take methane
Don't need plutonium to run this train.
It smells and it's nasty and it's rude sometimes
but it might just turn on your lights
That's the power of sludge
That's the power of sludge

New Ad Slogans by felonious · 2004-03-12 10:32 · Score: 2, Funny

Homeless - Will release methane for food

When you shit you save lives.

Give shit a chance

Beans power the world

Where do you want to shit today?

We bring your shit to life

We've Got the Time, You've Got the Shit.

Where's The Shit?

Do the shit

Smart. Beautiful. Shit.

Ok since I'm appealing to the lowest commmon denominator I have to add one more hilarious dung related item....

Watch the movie Trainspotting with subtitles on and particularly the scene "The Worst Toilet in Scotland". When Mark Renton is on the toilet pay special attention to the words being subtitled and hilarity insues. One of the funniest things I've ever seen!

--
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.

BOFH: Protecting bodily waste in the public domain by psuedo_samurai · 2004-03-12 10:42 · Score: 2, Funny

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/30/36116.html

It's not a digester, people by lesterhv · 2004-03-12 10:52 · Score: 2, Informative

To everyone who keeps saying digesters are nothing new; my greatgrandfather pooped into a digester and heated his house, etc. RTFA!

The article is talking about a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that directly converts the energy to electricity.

It is a first, since previous ones ran on glucose.

So that's where it goes... by uberdave · 2004-03-12 10:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

You know, I've always figured there was a problem with all those calorie counting books. A single chocolate doughnut takes a half hour of aerobics to burn off. Riiight! Sure it does. Calories in=Calories out sure. The books all assume calories out=background metabolism+exercise. However, calories out=background metabolism +exercise+waste. They miss this third component.

--
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad

Re:So that's where it goes... by kfg · 2004-03-12 12:14 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, there is something woefully wrong with those books. They are oversimplified for their ignorant target market, oftentimes by members of that target market themselves who have no deep understanding whatsoever and are merely cribbing from other such books with no deep understanding.

They do ignore waste, such as that found in excrement and the the heat put off by the body, but that's because that waste is of no interest to them.

Nontheless they do manage to get some of the crude details right. Those charts ignore waste, but not by not taking it into account, rather by simply ignoring those calories not actually consumed by the body in producing useful energy.

Yes, I can can power myself on my bicycle for half an hour at 15 mph or so on the fuel contained in a single chocolate donut. Three chocolate donuts will drive me at 25 mph for an hour or so. Substitute about three large bananas for each donut if you like. This is one of the reasons I prefer to bicycle rather than drive.

The human body is an astoundingly wonderous device for turning hydrocarbons into mechanical energy. Just how wonderous can be seen from your own observation, a good deal of the chocolate donut ends up as waste in the urine and excrement, and yet I still drive my bicycle with what I've absorbed for half an hour.

Pay no attention to those stupid calorie counting books. If you want to the know the real deal, explained in hard scientific fact, but written for the intelligent layman, go to your library where almost certainly find these works:

Aerobics. The groundbreaking work itself, based on Dr. Kenneth Cooper's work with training in the military.

Move on immediately to Covert Bailey's Fit or Fat . Covert is formerly a professional sports bum, and currently a Doctor of Exercise Physiology, with an absolutely wonderful way of expressing his knowledge for popular consumption. He's the Carl Sagan of exercise and diet. Read the book, but if your library has his tape series, watch them. If they don't, request them.

From there go to the bicycling science books of Dr. Edmund Burke (also a Doctor of Exercise Physiology), the record holder for bicycling from Buffalo to Albany, NY (14 hours and some minutes. 320 or so miles). These are bit more hard core, but still intended for popular reading.

Supplement with MIT Press's Bicycling Science and Engineering. This is a general lay scientific work on human power generation and the bicycle, the most efficient means of harnessing such power.

If your interest is, or becomes, more in depth than these books cover they are full of references to the orginal studies they are based on.

Then go buy yourself a bicycle, a treadle sewing machine, a wind up radio and a shakable flashlight. These are the most wonderous of all of man's creations so far. People are lazy, so they have spent most of their time developing technologies to avoid using their muscles, but if you combine high tech with muscle power you can accomplish amazing things, and all without foreign oil.

Not to mention the benefits to strength, health, and general fitness.

KFG

Something back is better than nothing back by ciphertext · 2004-03-12 10:58 · Score: 2, Informative

The average person defecates how many times per day? I didn't see it in the article, so I'm assuming that this was the projected measurement of 1 defecation per person. That means you get .51 watts from 100,000 feces. Assume that upon average, those 100,000 people defecate once per day. It is possible that some people defecate less than once per day and others defecate more than once per day. You basically get 2.04 Mw a day for a city of 4 million. That would be electricity bought and paid for by the sewer system that could be used to assist in the operation of the treatment facilities. Perhaps the savings would get passed on to the home as a reduced sewage handling fee.

--
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.

It's being done already by st1nky187 · 2004-03-12 11:10 · Score: 2, Informative

Last summer I went on a field trip to a sewage treatment plant. The power to run the plant comes solely from the methane they harvest. I asked about whether they sent any of the power back out to the grid and the guide said that they didn't generate nearly enough to do that. So, unless suburban New Yorkers have a lower methane output than everyone else I'm pretty skeptical that this would be really feasible.

1MW Fuel Cell plant about to go online by lofter59 · 2004-03-12 12:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

Here:

http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/fuelcell/fuelcellcam. ht m

Battery recharger? by mangu · 2004-03-12 12:30 · Score: 3, Funny

If there was a battery you shoved up your ass for recharging, it would come in several sizes: A, AA, AAA, and AAAAAARGH!

Los Angeles does this by angst_ridden_hipster · 2004-03-12 13:31 · Score: 2, Informative

The Hyperion Sewage Treatment facility, down over Dockweiler Beach, dumps out sewage-related gasses to the Scattergood Power Station.

The best document I can find online today suggests that Scattergood generates 50 Megawatts. I seem to recall having seen other online documents that provided a lot more detail -- it's possible that those documents have been taken down for "security" reasons.

In any case, it's converting one set of pollutants (sewer gas, methane, etc) into another (CO2, NOx), and generating power in the meantime.
Without knowing all the details, it seems like a pretty good idea to me; there are probably aspects that I don't understand that might change my views.

--
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net

Re:Decentralize the power grid and generate your o by shadowbearer · 2004-03-12 15:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

This isn't a new idea - there are rural homeowners who do it. Micro-turbine hydro seems to be the most popular tech for it now, probably because it has the highest return on investment.

Go find some issues of Mother Earth News, Countryside & Small Stock Journal, or Backwoods Home. There have been literally hundreds of articles over the last twenty years.

Fuel Cells (and you don't necessarily need hydrogen, there are FC's that can utilize methane, natgas, LP...) are really going to revolutionize small projects like this, once the bugs in the FC tech get ironed out and it gets into mass production.

What we really need right now to make this all take off in a huge way is better battery technology. Right now electrical storage efficiency sucks. If someone could come up with a really efficient way to store electricity, we could practically eliminate oil usage for energy production in a couple of generations.

SB

--
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.

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