San Antonio Generating Gas from Sewage
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.
Though methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it has a variety of uses. The substance can be used for fuel in gas turbines or steam boilers, and it is also used as vehicle fuel in the form of compressed natural gas. Additionally, NASA is researching methane as a potential rocket fuel.
According to Steve Claus, the chief operating officer of the water system, San Antonio’s sewage generates 1.5 million cubic feet of gas each day—enough to fill seven commercial blimps or 1,250 tanker trucks. The facilities needed for the project will be ready in about two years.
San Antonio will get $250,000 a year for the methane—a sum that I hope will go towards more renewable energy efforts in the area.
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Yes! Finally someone got it right! Stop digging in the ground for oil and burn methane! Burning methane produces carbon dioxide, which is a much less potent greenhouse gas as far as it’s ability to trap heat in the atmosphere. Pennsylvania farmers buy methane digesters for their cows. Check out Lancaster Farming. The byproducts are used as fertilizer and mulch, but they don’t smell bad after being digested, and bacteria are killed in the process. If a dairy farm with 800 cows can provide electricity for itself AND over a thousand neighboring houses, and there are 1.6 million dairy cattle in Pennsylvania alone, do the math! Consider the line drop as well- it makes more sense to produce electrcity locally. This takes care of the need to treat sewage too- Whereever there is a sewage treatment plant, there could be a methane digester and power plant. One farmer I read an interview with said that his methane digester had kept his farm supplied with electricity for years- he lost power for 15 minutes out of a decade. No worry about blackouts on that farm, and a methane digester under the barn keeps the cows warm and dry!
Thats pretty nifty…major kudos to whoever thought this up, smart, uses resources that would be wasted otherwise, we need more stuff like this
I don’t get it. Sure its nice to get use out of waste, especially massively produced human waste, but making people pay for what they produce naturally, I don’t get it how that works at all. Sure, people are needed to collect the gas from the sewage, and those people need to make an income, but it really needs to be clearly explained how the economics actually work without being lied to be corporations(like with ENRON)so we can understand why it is necessary to pay for something when we are already contributing through our waste. If anything, it better be extremely inexpensive and actually cost less than what we are already paying for natural gas, otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
This is a no brainer. Global Warming may be a hoax [it's not] but the benefits of going green are definately not.
This is a very good move and could be very helpful to poor countries like my own Malawi in Africa. Our sewage is put to waste and indeed waste while our colleague in the advanced world are looking at sewage as a good source of energy.
How could I geet in touch with the people involved as find ways of improving our own situation here and make use of our waste.
Regard,
Clement G.J. Stambuli, MP
Member of Parliament
Nkhotakota Central Constituency
Malawi
Wow, this is cool. At last some use of waste.Some people in the Phillipines have been doing this for some time but in small scale.
I am so impressed by this article. Iam equally touched by the level of wastes generated in kampala(about 2 metric tonnes perday)and have felt something can be done about it too. Congratulations!
Fatimah,
Methane is a bio fuel.After burning methane (or when used in machineries) the by products are Carbon Dioxide and water. But compared to hydrocarbon fuels methane produces a lot less Carbon Dioxide… Methane is actually a good thing…
What are you talking about Fatimah? Methane is non-toxic. Granted, if its concentration became sufficiently high so that oxygen availability was reduced asphyxiation is possible. Furthermore, when methane burns you get water and carbon dioxide, neither of which are toxic.
Right on Fast Eddie!!!
Sounds like a krappy idea to me