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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.
... 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?
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.
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.
If you didn't notice this article is a summary from a slightly more detailed article at:
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4602892/
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.
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.
What about the "clean energy" idea?
So say we all
Does anyone else find it funny that an article on sewage is on an Ohio site called "Whiz News"?
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!