Friday, September 12, 2008

Energy Alert: turning waste into energy in San Antonio

Congrats to the sensible folks of San Antonio, Texas for this great news. We are seeing more and more things in the press about creative use of technology for energy generation. Let's just hope that oil stays expensive enough so that we don't have this return to sloth, like we did back in the 70's. The fact is that I don't want Americans going to the SUV's. I DO want to see people continue to buy hybrids and use public transportation.

Let's hope we see many more projects like this around the country. "Solid waste" is produced by ever human being in the world of course.

Some communities are using methane gas harvested from solid waste to power smaller facilities like sewage treatment plants, but San Antonio is the first to see large-scale conversion of methane gas from sewage into fuel for power generation, he said.

Following the agreement, more than 90 percent of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will be recycled, he said. Liquid is now used for irrigation, many of the solids are made into compost, and now the methane gas will be recycled for power generation.


From here.

1 comment:

Don said...

Waste incineration has been used in Europe for a long time. But, in general, U.S. environmentalists have opposed its application.

U.S. environmentalists are too obsessed with their own vision of lifestyle primitivism as the long-term objective of the movement. Doing something like recycling waste would, in their minds, allow the continuation of present lifestyles without having to exploit new natural resources.

As things stand now, however, lifestyles will change whether anyone wants them to or not. Oil and gas are slipping out of the hands of the majors. The trend in the immediate future is towards elevated energy prices, which is the only thing that will really encourage things such as this.

The bad part is that major consumer countries will have to contract (by economic inducement or by force) for their supply, which could lead to nasty confrontations.