City of San Antonio plans to convert human waste to energy

San Antonio unveiled a deal that will make it the first US city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel. San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tons a year of a substance gently referred to as "biosolids," which can be reprocessed into natural gas, said Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city's water system. The main byproduct of human waste - methane gas - will be converted by Ameresco Inc into up to 1.5 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to burn in power plants for electricity generation. Methane gas, a byproduct of human and organic waste, is a principal component of the natural gas used to fuel furnaces, power plants, and other combustion-based generators. More than 90% of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will henceforth be recycled.

- This is a good idea, as a city of any size needs to deal with the stuff anyway. Instead of expending resources to deal with human waste, now it can be turned around into an energy source. 1.5 mmcf worth of natural gas per day is pretty good - that's equivalent to about 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day in terms of energy content.

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