San Antonio to Create Energy From Human Waste
San Antonio recently unveiled a new plan to harvest the methane gas from its residents’ waste, in order to convert it to energy, according to Yahoo! News.
Ameresco Inc., based out of Massachusetts, landed the contract to convert the city’s 140,000 tons of “biosolids” produced annually into natural gas. The agreement stipulates that more than 90 percent of what San Antonio flushes will be recycled.
While other municipalities use similar systems on a smaller scale, San Antonio will be the first major city to turn methane gas from human waste into clean-burning fuel on a commercial scale.
The plan could help the city bring in an additional quarter of a million dollars in revenue. 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.”
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