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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Many communities have done this for years.
yeah! its good to hear the practical application of natural gas to man kind from the sewage waste.
Is this similar to obtain gobar gas from cow dung which is used by people in most of the villages for full filling their domestic fuel
before to late, we keep in the world
Here are a couple things to realize for all you doubters. There is no new side effects or emmissions from methane. Methane = Natural Gas. If you have natural gas in your home you are already using the EXACT same gas. When it burns you get CO2 and water. Most cities have a smoke stack on their sewage treatment plants. If you drive by them at night you will see a flame 15 foot tall. That is poo gas (i.e. methane, Natural gas). If there is any side effects from it all city dwellers are already screwed.
Also you need to understand it is NOT illegal to run a vehicle on methane. In fact Honda has a version of the Civic (Civic GX) that is sold in a few states in the US already that is powered by natural gas (California is one of the ones that has them readily available). In Utah there are a lot of vehicles being converted due to having the lowest natural gas prices in the nation. As long as its done by a certified installer its legal. Kits are also available over the internet and are not expensive. If its illegal then its a state law not a national one.
It is not likely that this technology will become available for private home owners. A single household does not generate enough meathane to be worth it. In addition the only people that would even be in a position to do it would be those on a septic system and not city sewers. Probably wouldn’t be that hard to create a kit for septic owners to do this and it would be cheap. (Think garden hose and air pump. Any engine can burn it when pressurized. Mythbusters proved it.) The technology does exist and is common in third world countries and even in many US dairy farms. Most systems require about 5 cows worth of output to create enough methane to do much with. I have seen commercial dairies with hundreds of cows producing 80% of their power off their cow manure.
The Brazilian state of Parana is taking a slightly different tact with its 191 sewage treatment plants. They are tapping the methane to run microturbines to make the treatment plants energy self-sufficient. [They are also looking into using the flow of sewage from one tank to another to drive turbines.] Any excess power they generates will be sold to the grid.
And the best part is that we’re unlikely to run out of garbage anytime soon!
I’d like to know what the effect is of burning methane too, but my understanding is that we’re actually reducing the amount of greenhouse gases by capturing it and burning it. The garbage would produce methane anyway, and burning it reduces the amount in the ozone. I could be wrong though, so if anyone knows, please contact me.
Two points about methane though — it’s still cleaner than petroleum and domestic supplies can remain and be used domestically (not so of oil, because it’s traded worldwide as a commodity - no matter what the Republicans are telling us).
I think T. Boone Pickens is right when he says natural gas is an excellent transitional fuel for America’s transition to 100 percent clean energy.
This is not meant to be funny or facetious in any way, But: Americans are much larger and better fed than even Asian pigs, for example, and in Asia pig-poo is used to produce fuel in compressed gas low pressure bottled form! Not new technology! Very do-able! like propane! It seems to me only logical that American humanure, as well as Factory Farm waste has value as a resource flow for the same purpose, and the bidding wars for it will start the day the “Cheap oil Era” ends and fuels have real value! Imagine the riches being lost daily from Chicago, Detroit, New York, Atlanta Boston and the like! When will the corporatist sharpen his pencil and go after this ROI and clean up America at the same time! Apparently event the remaining sludge can be sold as top-soil fertilizer and improver! Win-win in the offing America! We will get fuel, cleaner lakes, rivers and seashores and better, more fertile soil for growing in, all in one mighty Capitalistic grab for our Shiite and pee! Oil price rises exponentially as its decline accelerates in similar fashion and we await our rewards to begin, Clean Air, fewer internal combustion engines, bullet trains to replace frantic jet flights, cheaper freight by rail, cheap bottled methane for all and great topsoil to replace corporatism’s salted and burned out fields, Solar, Wind Wave, Hydro, Tidal, and Geo-thermal displacing filthy nuclear power and America bursting fourth in green bloom, and the “Fourth Turning” a time and place for the true “Age of Aquarius” and a joy to all! Even Asians can do this for themselves, and for the good of mankind! End the Cheap oil Age now! End psycho-consumerism in America! Let life happen without pollution, corruptin! it can be done! - San Antonio is living proof!