Human waste to power streetlights
Posted on Dec 14, 07 10:28 AM PDT
To prove the age old adage "there is a silver lining in every cloud", a bio-gas plant in an Indian town is capable of generating up to 3,000 watts of electricity a day - thanks to human waste. Talk about an effective way of reigning in all those gases in a beneficial manner for everybody! Guess they could probably lump all that cow poo as well to churn out more juice. This electricity generated will be used to power streetlights in the vicinity.
Your Comments
Comments will be published immediately if you use a Disqus, Facebook or Twitter account. Anonymous comments will be moderated.
Legacy Comments
By supercujo , 16/12/07 2:22 AM (CommentID #395230)
Not a new idea really. Just on a small scale.
For example:
"Biogas, produced from the decomposition of sewerage, is used in the Water Corporation's Woodman Point wastewater treatment plant to generate around 6GWh of electricity per year. Two 600 kW reciprocating engine generator sets, fuelled by the biogas, provide electricity for use on site with the excess exported to the grid. Waste heat from the engines is also recovered and used for optimising digester temperature."
Now, 6GWh of electricity per year is a decent amount of power.
By drbuzz0 , 14/12/07 7:43 PM (CommentID #394083)
Yeah, I hate it when they confuse power and energy. The way I read it though it sounds like they mean 3000 watts of power continuously, or relatively continuously.
Yes, it's nice idea but it's hardly a large amount of energy. It's about the amount you'd get from a small home generator you could get for under a grand. You could light a few streetlamps if they are high enough in effeciency, but again, it hardly seems worth it. The same could be done with a modest wind or micr-hydro system or even solar street lights.
It seems like it's a lot of work for 3 kilowatts, especially when you consider the pumping and gas collection. It might be worthwhile if it could be scalled up, but still. Three kilowatts ain't really a hill of beans
By Nobody@nowhere.com , 14/12/07 1:07 PM (CommentID #393810)
"3000 watts per day"? Energy is measured in joules or watt-hours. Do they mean 3000 watt-hours per day? That's equivalent to being able to run 30 100-watt bulbs for one hour per day -- hardly enough to justify the cost unless they scale it up.
Featured Posts
Top Stories
Uber10: the greatest gifts, coming up on November 12
Nvidia fighting Intel with...humor?
Brainwave Sofa knows what you are thinking
Windows 7 smashes Microsoft sales records
Motorola Droid Review
Dell Adamo XPS hands-on and final pricing
eStarling 802.11n Touchscreen Connected Frame
Bring TIM targets business meetings
Novation Launchpad unveiled
Advertisement
