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Salt Lake City Plan May Turn Sewer Waste To Energy
tuxd00d writes "The question goes something like this: How many toilet flushes does it take to power a light bulb? There's really no answer, but Salt Lake City is exploring a pilot project that would convert sewer waste into energy to run a heating and cooling system in a downtown building, city water department official Jeff Niermeyer said."
This shitty heater never works!
When you flush the sh*t will really hit the fan...
It sounds like it works similar to the biomass ideas I've heard that are constantly arising. I would like to see a formal unbiased study done on what process applied to X renewable resources (in this case, waste) is the most efficient in net energy return.
There have been some recent minor achievements by a research team at the University of Minnesota (my alma mater).
I'm not sure if it's related to an effort to introduce it to the public. From that article You might laugh but Biomass is important in Minnesota--although I realize that the current process isn't as BTU profitable as some Brazilian sugar cane plants, but hopefully they can squeeze more and more useful resources out of what was normally considered waste.
I wonder if it would be possible in the future to engineer plants which when harvested produce an optimal BTU return
My work here is dung.
It is never a good idea to give a city motivation to contaminate the water supply so that they can sell more electricity to California. If I ever need to visit SLC, I will bring my own water.
Seriously though, I'm all for alternative energy, but to really make a difference, the technology has to be cost effective and scalable. That is the ONLY way it will ever get adopted. Wind is moving in that direction and I think nuclear is becoming more viable again.... but many other stuff: solar, wave power, etc... has a LONG way to go.
Let's find out.
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*karuuuunch*
What the hell was that?!?
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
... Cue mass tagging of this article as 'itsacrap'? ;-)
The idea of powering things from seemingly worthless waste matter isn't new - there's that Swedish train powered by methane from fermented cow offal, for example. I know sewage works produce a lot of methane anyway, so it's possibly just a matter of collecting it in a cost-effective manner...
Land-fill sites might be next. I've seen small flares stuck into the ground, burning off excess methane, to stop it collecting to dangerous, explosive levels. Once again, it's a matter of whether it's cost-effective to collect this otherwise free gas.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
The main sewage plants for London (Crossness and Beckton), has been burning most of the capital's sewage to make power for several years. According to the link below, they make a little more power than it takes to run the treatment plant. The Crossness station has a really pretty sinusoidal roof.
o nNarrative.153/chapterId/3192/Bazalgette-and-Londo ns-sewage.html
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/C
During a power outage, just feed tenants some food from Taco Bell.
it makes the fan turn...
Does anyone else find it odd that a the story linked to appears in Whiznews?
this article stinks!
flushing money down the toilet!
its the shit...!
Why UNIX?
only reading top level comments makes conversations not quite conversant
Then it will really be world power.
As far as I figure this is just a heat pump, they put lines through sewage that is heating because it is decomposing.
It is a nice idea for sure, I wonder if this hasn't been done already though.
People here in Denmark are having heat pumps installed all over the place and people place these water/air lines all over the place to get air for their heat pump a little hotter than otherwise, burying the lines in the earth below frost depth seems to be a normal choice, but if you anyhow do have a dunghill or something like that why not let the pipes run through there.
Anyhow heat pumps sure is one of the many things that we need to use a lot more in the future, no one technology will be able to replace our use of hydrocarbons, but if we combine all the technologies we have a shot of actually significantly reduce our CO2 emissions.
There's never a shortage of bull$hit there...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A toilet flush produces a certain amount of energy.
A lightbulb consumes a certain amount of power (assuming a certain average).
You just can't compare the two. You have to integrate power over time first. A better question would be, "how many flushes of the toilet does it take to power a 15W lightbulb for a year?"
Then you can argue that it also depends on what, exactly you are flushing, and its energy content. Maybe some people's poop is more effective than others.
Actually, everyone can reply, but the replies are invisible (except if it's a reply to your own post and you've turned on email notifications for replies). But even then the "parent" link is broken.
Donate free food here
really?
OK, so it's not directly related to shit-power, but why has there been a sudden overload in tag trolling — specifically, adding "itsatrap" to every story on the front page?! This is one for the Slashdot trolling phenomena article. In what way is getting useful work out of sewage a trap?
I RTFA, and it seems they're not actually extracting the chemical energy from the sewage -- rather, they're just installing a heat pump to exploit the temperature differential between the sewage and the ground.
...
Now, using a heat pump might be rather novel in itself -- but extracting energy from sewage is nothing new. We've been doing this in Sweden for quite some time now -- except chemically. Here's a random link with some information about one such installation
The resulting biogas is used to replace natural gas in different applications, and we have for quite some time had Bi-Fuel vehicles that can run compressed biogas as well as gasoline, that enjoy certain tax benifits. Also, I seem to remember that a new residential area in Stockholm, Hammarby Sjöstad, is getting a biogas system for heating (and maybe for cooking, I can't remember)...
Either way. Extracting energy from sewage is not a new idea. Extracting heat energy from sewage using a heat pump might be a novel idea, but it's not really any new exciting technology, just a rather clever application of existing technology. Calling it "turning sewer waste to energy" is inaccurate, because the actual sewer waste isn't consumed when you do just, you just cool it down.
A man suffered internal burns when he tried to launch a rocket from his bottom on Bonfire Night.t m
:/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/6132140.s
On with the comments
Are you sure?
erm. A reply. I think.
If you didn't notice this article is a summary from a slightly more detailed article at:
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4602892/
um.... no, I haven't noticed. :-)
I was troubled that the science of this plan was lost when Tom erased it from the Fun-Puter. I'm glad his idea is being implemented in SLC (though what about Jefferton?)
As they said on the MST3K parody of "The Mole People":
"Oh NO! Light just slightly brighter than what we're accustomed to!"
You cannot "heat a building 95% of the time" with a temp lower than your desired temperature. Maybe the soft-pedalled HEAT PUMP can. And with water five degrees warmer than the groundwater, the heat pump will be about 1.2% more efficient. Which can never pay off the added cost, not even the interest on the cost. No way, no how. They'd be much better off spending the $20K on a more efficient heat pump.
See title.
Where were you when the voynix came?
just don't forget to keep the CTRL-ESC-buttons pushed when clicking on the reply-link
Yes, it's certainly terrible how we can't reply to comments.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
O RLY?
(Testing, testing, 1 2 3, testing...)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
This is already done in atleast one city in Sweden, the heat in the cleaned waste water gets transferred to a district heating system by a heat exchange system. And the then cooled down waste water (just above 0C) is used again as district cooling to a hospital.
The methane is usually used to power the waste water plant itself. Also often used as fuel in busses and cars.
I think its great that people are thinking of ways to recoup some of the energy from waste, but one thing we need to consider is failure cases. If this technology works and we become reliant on it, failure of either the sewer system or the energy system could result in outages. By piggy-backing systems we create more places for a failure to creep in break the system.
Well, is it broken? Won't know until I try.
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
What about the "clean energy" idea?
So say we all
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No, I haven't noticed...
So say we all
Reply working better now eh...
if they could tap into the stream of bullshit coming out of SCO...
Do you have ESP?
Does anyone else find it funny that an article on sewage is on an Ohio site called "Whiz News"?
Landfill gas (approx 40% methane, 30% CO2, 18% N2, 2% O2) has been used for years as a fuel to run gas engines. The major problem is that it comes loaded with water (typically saturated) and siloxanes (forms SiO2 or glass during combustion). Pretty much it makes a very 2nd rate fuel. However with some cleaning, scrubbing, and some refrigeration, you can nearly everything except the methane, and sell it as natural gas (great fuel compared to gas or diesel). There are companies right now that do that very process. You can expect it to be a growth industry soon, as there are literally 1000's of sites that burn off methane as a waste product. Current technology can produce methane at about $2.30 gasoline equivalent gallon, hence it's likely to stay profitable for a long time to come.
Additionally, they may be just moving the heating/cooling problem somewhere else. If they are using any sort of digester's for treating the sewage, the city may need to add/remove heat to bring the sewage up to the best temperature for the "bugs" to work. To cold, to hot, to acidic, to basic, to many hydrocarbons, etc. and you can throw the whole treatment process off.
Columbus, OH had this method in place already. It has been an ongoing project for THE Ohio State University.
/ index.html
The the fact that waste "digestion" produces methane has been known for years.
What got in the way in Columbus was the environmentalists that think that producing our own methane to consume is hazardous to the environment. They stopped the process, and now the solid waste is mixed with mulch and topsoil to create a "Super Fertilizer", which citizens can pay for and use in their landscaping and gardens.
http://www.monolithic.com/gallery/airforms/dystor
I guess fecal matter in your veggies is more appealing then producing your own form of unlimited energy to these environmentalists.
Maybe they have reinstated the plant, but it wasn't operational when I lived there 2 years ago.
Instead of the sh** hitting the fan, it will run it!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
My god, do you realize how much ethanol we can produce by harvesting all the corn? Brilliant!
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
SLC is one of those homogenous communities where 60% of state of Utah population lives. This proves a test bed for wild hared ideas from marketing to engineering and public acceptance.
Its also one of those places where the government is available at an affordable cost to approach schemes like this one where anywhere else it would have an EIR, DOE and USC regs to begin an introduction.
Methane from the DC sewage plant was used to heat the Naval Research Lab where I worked for years. One problem is the methane has quite a bit of air and CO2 in it so the facility where it is burned must be able to adjust the air to fuel ratio dynamically. We were next door to sewage plant so connecting to the methane source was no big deal. Of course when the wind came from the south we certainly knew who our next door neighbor was.
This shit...is...bananas! bee ayy enn ayy enn ayy ess
Hey it's no worse than the other shitty jokes in this thread.
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they channel the effluent directly into the Salt Lake
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they pass a law mandating that everyone flush at the same time(s)
This should create enough wave energy to extract drinking water for the city.Those of you commenting "my city of X in Y country has had this for years!" have not read TFA.
Burning the methane that is a byproduct of one form of wastewater treatment is neither novel or new. Many, if not most, of these types of wastewater treatment facilities produce a net energy surplus, which is more often than not inputted to the power grid. If you live in a modern city in a developed nation, it would be unusual for your city not to have one or more of these type of facilities.
But that is not what the article is about. The article is about using heat pumps to harness the heat differential between sewage pipes and the ground. At the end of the pipe level, this IS somewhat novel and innovative.
This coffee tastes like shit.
It is shit.
Oh. It's a bit nutty.
This space unintentionally left blank.
This is already been done in my town to heat a whole district of my town :)
:)
And this is old lowtech norway