San Antonio to Convert Human Waste to Energy

The Texas city of San Antonio today announced that it would become the first major U.S. city to harvest methane gas from human waste and produce a clean burning fuel from it.

The city of 1.3 million people produces about 140,000 tons of a substance euphemistically called "biosolids" per year. The main byproduct of this substance is methane, which can easily be converted into natural gas to burn in power plants. The city made a deal in which Massachusetts based Ameresco Inc. will convert the city's biosolids, generating about 1.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The natural gas can be used to fuel furnaces, power plants and other combustion based generators. According to Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city's water system, "The private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market." The gas will then be sold to power companies.

Once this process is set up San Antonio will be recycling over 90% of materials flushed down toilets and drained through sinks, showers, etc. The city already uses liquid for irrigation and converts much of the solid waste to compost. Now the gas will be used for energy. Seems like they have a pretty efficient going on down there.

[via Reuters]