Bobko D writes in Tips and Notes
Anthony,
One of the more ridiculous schemes how to save the world – a candidate for your “Craziness of the week”, perhaps – is the POO POWER! project from Melbourne, Australia.
I am tempted to believe the guy who dreamed it up, Duncan Chew, must be playing a joke on our environmentalists – yet he is now laughing all the way to the bank, with this $45,000 grant from Australian Government green schemes:
I’m tempted to agree, especially when the guy can’t even get the flowchart sequence right, i.e. which came first, the dog or the poo? 😉
This one’s a real stinker, even by green lunacy standards. Next I envision they’ll try to make catbox powered homes…Read on…
MEDIA RELEASE (see http://www.poopower.com.au/our-story/45000-grant-to-poo-power.html )
Poo Power! is one of … recipients from Inspiring Australia’s ‘Unlocking Australia’s Potential’ program. The $45,000 grant has been awarded to the Yarra Energy Foundation to turn dog poo from parks in the City of Yarra into renewable energy.
There is over 1350 tonnes of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia… Using this un-tapped resource, Poo Power! will engage Australians in its science through utilising an anaerobic digester to process dog waste into biogas that can serve as a local renewable energy source.
Within the City of Yarra there are approximately 6078 dogs that generate over 750 tonnes of waste every year… This waste can be diverted into a local an anaerobic digester to generate more than 3800 litres of biogas that can be used for heating, lighting or electricity.
This small but important amount of biogas will be used in a City of Yarra park in an interactive public installation as a community meeting place for use by dog owners and other citizens.
“This project has the potential to be groundbreaking, a whole lot of fun and will deliver value to the citizens in the City of Yarra, which is why YEF is involved.” Alex Fearnside, CEO of the Yarra Energy Foundation.
This project was instigated by Duncan Chew … Project and Science Engagement Manager for the Poo Power! Project…”
Media enquiries:
Poo Power! – Duncan Chew | 0418 513 240 | duncan@greennation.com.au
Yarra Energy Foundation – Alex Fearnside | 0434 990 108 | alex.fearnside@yef.org.au
—–
“What is Poo Power? We’ve found a way to unleash the power in the 1,350 tonnes of dog poo produced each day in Australia….”
and
“…On average, a dog produces 0.34 kilograms (kg) of feces per day. Consequently, there is approximately 1,350.48 tonnes (t) of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia; 492,925 tonnes (t) per year.
Therefore we want to build an anaerobic methane digester to process the dog waste … to create a biogas that can serve as renewable energy source…”
(http://www.poopower.com.au/what-is-poo-power.html)
@Fred. here in the UK, responsible people pick up their dog’s excrement anyway. it gets put in special bins. that’s partly to stop children going blind, but also because we just don’t want dog shit all over our parks. what to do with it? bury it? burn it? turn it into methane? surely worth a little grant to have a look?
Wow, this is a bunch of dog crap.
This risky excreta schema might just work, if all of the dogs were coon hounds. My experience with redbone or blue tick coon hounds is that 5 pounds of dog food input produces 10 pounds of dog doo output. It seems to violate the basics of conservation of mass and energy…. but there it is!
@Alan Watt, CD (Certified Denialist), Level 7
I disagree
The paper describes a method to extract almost pure methane from an effluent stream by separating CO2 & CH4 using PDMS membrane contactors. The process delivers CH4 recovery rates of over 70% at a purity suitable for use in the national grid.
Using dog poo is just another source of effluent.
My question would be “how much water is required to turn the dog poo into something suitable for an anaerobic digester?”
The world is going to the dogs over dogs going.
Why stop at dogs?
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=008BPUdQ1XA ]
Before “Airplane!” there was “Kentucky Fried Movie”.
As others have noted doggie doos are like wind power, a low density energy source because the cost of collection in monetary and CO2 terms would reduce the effectiveness to a stunt, which I’m sure is all that is intended.
Might I suggest a way in which it could be made to work for real? It is clear and has been for sometime that there is an exact analogue for dog poo and it exists in unimaginably large quantities between the ears of people like Al Gore, Hanson and many others. It is not known quite what it’s purpose is but it has been suggested that it in some way acts as a substitute for the brain in these people.
My plan is that it could be tapped like a rubber tree into a container strapped to the forehead of the donor and I feel sure it would provide enough green carbon free energy to keep Al and the others carbon neutral.
All I require is modest funding for a pilot scheme 100,000 (any of the major currencies acceptable) for starters. As UEA CRU is only about 5 miles away from here, I think I’ll start there. My guess is that the mother-lode resides at Penn State however.
For those that think that having poo dripping out of his head into a dish would make Al or Jim seem undignified I would say this………Nah.
sarc
I can see it now….Next year’s hot new hybrid car will have a toilet bowl as the driver’s seat….
I think we should all help our brothers and sisters of the City of Yarra, to solve their energy problem. Please mail your dog and cat scat to the City of Yarra. GK
Dog poo has (or at least had) a use: tanning leather. The best leather is still, I think, tanned this way.
Those with a biblical frame of mind might like to look up Acts 10:6 “He lPeter] is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.” not to be understood as prime beach front real estate, but simply that the noxious smell, at least some of the time, got blown out to sea.
I got an A* in irrelevance at school.
More than sixty years ago it was common practice for city sewage works to collect their bio gas and use this to run heaters for their digesters. Heating sped the digestion process and saved on capital outlays for additional digesters. In those days I never heard of any municipality selling surplus gas nor of surpluses having to be flamed off so the production potential might be fairly limited.
Andy Mayhew:
At August 19, 2012 at 9:57 am you say
Oh! Well, I can tell you why. It is because they have more than two operating brain cells.
Richard
@ur momisugly Andy Mayhew. One of the biggest problems in the developed {HA!) world for local councils is people who drop their litter in the streets. Processing excretae from wherever is in the greater scheme of things the equivalent of white-washing the windows in the event of a nuclear exchange – it gives the impression of doing something whilst being totally useless.
Don’t see a problem here – good idea. What some of your readers may not know is that it is compulsory to bag your dog’s poo if performed on public space here in Australia. People then deposit it in the nearest bin. Why not deposit it in a specially designed receptacle for energy instead?
Cheers
Michael
@mwhite Yes, I’ve noticed it in Milton Keynes, and a pretty disgusting habit it is too. In one of the parks where there’s no bins, poo for the use of, people have taken to dropping the bags a short way from the path. So, as time passes, more people drop their bag where the other bags are, and you get a small cairn. Still disgusting..
Funny but our local sewage treament plant has what is called Primary Treament since the plant was first built in the 1950’s, the generated methane is used to power most of the pumps in the plant, aerobic secondary treatment was added in the 1970’s.
I solved the problem I had with dog poo by just tossing it in my neighbor’s yard. She lets her cat run loose and it uses my shrubs for spraying and the flower bed for poo and my truck for a perch. Poo-poo exchange? She has a “forward” bumper sticker so she must know all. She’s a school teacher but the neighbors call her the “hippie bitch”.
Then I read this today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2190086/Cat-parasite-worms-humans-brains-drive-victims-suicide.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Research shows cats cause a brain worm (ear wick?) that causes human madness or something to that effect. In an earlier comment someone said OZ had more cats than dogs. Maybe this is the cause of the people crazy enough to elect the mad public representatives they have. How many cats are in the UK? The USA? Should these people be screened from voting knowingly having brain worms that can lead to madness? Their voting record would be enough to warrant testing for mental capability. How does the university academics rate as to cat ownership. Perhaps that is a problem. Would a lobotomy solve the problems that some academics seem to have?
Save the world and feed a cat to a dog. Maybe a greenie too. Wait, that could make the dog sick. Just don’t feed the greenie.
Re: above comment
Should read ‘earwig’ and not ‘ear wick’.
They’re just taking the P now!
My family had both inside dogs and a basement coal bin for several decades. I can freely attest that a safe means of disposal that extracts the stored energy of dog poo is to mix it with coal that is subsequently burnt for energy production.
Has this now been determined to be a bad idea? You could always incorporate it into common charocoal briquettes. Slap “Green” on the label, and if anyone complains about grilling dogs with dog poo, or burning fuels period, just point out how you’re Saving The Earth by using a renewable fuel.
(Now grilling a tofu dog, over charcoal or gas or at all, THAT is a crime against Nature!)
Melbourne Resident
This is the reason I am applying for Australian Citizenship, so that at the next election I can vote out the idiots we currently have masquerading as government and providing grants for stupid things.
“750 tonnes of waste every year… This waste can be diverted into a local an anaerobic digester to generate more than 3800 litres of biogas..”
Surely you must mean 3800 cubic metres! If it’s litres, the lights are going to be a dim as a city run on solar or windmills.
Poopower? Well, happy happy joy joy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ0BQUufUpE&feature=related
“Anon says:
August 19, 2012 at 10:59 am”
Our mothballed desal plants would then have a purpose. Water for all!
@eyesonu You read the Daily Mail? That was probably your mistake right there… They do have a habit of printing a health related story, and then about three months later printing something that flatly contradicts it. Though the cat poo/worm thing is (more or less) true, I do wonder how they’re going to make it seem to be a good thing. Possibly a cure for Altzheimers?
mwhite says:
If it was that good an idea the world would be full of powerstations using human and farm animal waste. This kind of electricitty production has been known about for decades.
This actually is done at sewerage treatment plants and on some farms. However the results are typically to reduce the need for mains electricity (and gas) rather than sell these in any quantity.