The stench of clogged toilets fills the air at the US capital’s wastewater treatment facility. And for good reason — it is one of the world’s largest projects to transform human waste into electricity.
“They make green energy,” engineer Chris Peot said of Washington’s toilet-goers during a tour of the sprawling space in the southeast of the city.
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority’s (DC Water) Blue Plains facility treats 1,400 million liters of dirty water from more than 2 million households on a daily basis, purging it with micro-organisms that first ingest carbon and then transform nitrates into nitrogen gas.
Photo: AFP
Once that is done, the water is clean enough to flow into the nearby Potomac River or Chesapeake Bay without disrupting the fragile ecosystems.
As for the excrement, it is either recycled as compost or, in a new step implemented six months ago, used to produce 10 megawatts of electricity.
The “poop power” generated is theoretically enough to supply about 8,000 households, although in practice the energy is ploughed straight back into powering the plant.
To do so, plant workers collect the solid matter that slips to the bottom of the treatment pools and subject it to a Norwegian hydrolysis technique that is being used in North America for the first time.
According to Peot, DC Water’s director of resource recovery, the process allows the plant to extract organic material and convert it to methane. When burned, the methane generates power that is used to help run the plant.
“This project embodies a shift from treating used water as waste to leveraging it as a resource,” DC Water CEO George Hawkins said, as he inaugurated the new US$470 million facility on Oct. 5, financed by water bills.
The methane is produced through the decomposition of organic waste by bacteria in huge vats that stand 25m tall, with each capable of “digesting” 14.4 million liters of solid matter.
The biogas is then used to operate three turbines, each the size of a jet engine, to produce 13 megawatts of electricity, three of which are immediately used for the hydrolysis.
The 10 remaining megawatts are used by the water treatment plant — the biggest energy consumer in Washington — reducing its carbon footprint by one-third and cutting operating costs by millions of dollars per year, Peot said.
American Council on Renewable Energy chief strategy officer Todd Foley said it is a “way to diversify the energy mix and control our energy costs.”
“There will be an increased role for that kind of activity,” he said.
Wind, solar and biomass combined accounted for just 6 percent of the world’s electricity supply last year, according to the International Energy Agency, compared with 41 percent for coal, 22 percent for gas, 17 percent for hydropower, 11 percent for nuclear and 4 percent for oil.
Biogas derived from human waste provides hope for poor countries as an energy source capable of producing power for 138 million households worldwide, according to a UN report published last month. The process could improve hygiene in poorer countries, where a lack of sanitation accounts for 10 percent of illnesses.
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