Comments on: Power The Future, Through Cow Manure? https://lifeboat.com/blog/2007/08/power-the-future-through-cow-manure Safeguarding Humanity Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:02:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 By: triticale https://lifeboat.com/blog/2007/08/power-the-future-through-cow-manure#comment-10075 Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:02:23 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=88#comment-10075 The use of methane from human waste as a source of energy is nothing new. Municipal waste treatment plants have been running their pumps on sewer gas (by converting diesels to spark ignition) for over 25 years that I know of.

Methane is about equivalent to 120 octane. It cannot be compressed efficiently, but it makes an excellent fuel for stationary applications.

]]> By: Darnell Clayton https://lifeboat.com/blog/2007/08/power-the-future-through-cow-manure#comment-9690 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:35:09 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=88#comment-9690 Thanks for the analysis Tom!

What about using animals along with humans? I am looking for solutions here, otherwise we may be stuck with gas and coal until the sun burns out. ;-) (that is, if it last that long).

PS

This could probably be used in combination with other green energy sources, although thus far the only promising ones are nuclear and hydropower.

]]> By: Tom McCabe https://lifeboat.com/blog/2007/08/power-the-future-through-cow-manure#comment-9686 Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:50:55 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=88#comment-9686 “However, if researchers found a way to turn “human manure” into energy, we could ultimately find a renewable energy source that can keep up with our ever growing population.”

This is physically impossible. A standard human consumes around ~2500 kcal/day (10.465 MJ). If none of this energy was used for other stuff (like breathing), and we could extract it from sewage with perfect efficiency and convert it to natural gas for all six and a half billion people, we’d produce around 1.1 million metric tons of natural gas. In comparison, the world uses ~5 million metric tons of natural gas a day; so even making ridiculously optimistic assumptions, this wouldn’t come close to covering our gas supply, let alone our other energy sources (coal, oil, nuclear, hydro).

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