lines could connect to septic tanks to siphon off the methane, keeping it out of the atmosphere. it could then be burned for energy. even if the setup didnt make much energy, it might make enough energy to power itself . it would be nice if it made enough to power some govt vehicles, like maybe the mail trucks or a bus or two. everyone's grass clippings and other biomass could be fed into a central tank to make even more methane, instead of it getting landfilled, where the decomposition gases go straight to atmosphere...-- bobenhotep, Aug 05 2004 Sewage Treatment Plant http://www.gvrd.bc....ewerage/annacis.htm[swamijake]'s link [jurist, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/sewerage/annacis.htm This is a sewage treatment plant with a cogeneration facility attached. It makes enough power to run the plant and sell a small amount of electricity back on to the grid.-- swamijake, Aug 05 2004 So that's why it smells so bad when the wind blows from the south... I always thought Annacis was just a regular sewage plant.-- eulachon, Aug 05 2004 Pipes is too expensive. Try using balloons. With a large yellow balloon attached to the top of each gas producing installation, when ever a large enough amount has been collected, the balloon would wave it's collectableness in the wind and it would be the job of some poorly compensated tank driver to compress it into liquid form and drive off to the next bobbling bag.-- youBuildit, Jul 01 2008 Plus, neighborhood kids could contrive flaming darts to throw at these balloons in the dead of night.-- bungston, Jul 01 2008 I would imagine that the energy required to filter, concentrate and compress the methane into the form needed for easy transport and use would nearly or completely exceed the energy derived from it.
Does anyone have or have seen any calculations to prove/disprove this theory?-- ServoMan314, Jul 02 2008 //imagine that the energy required...// not really, just make your collection point the lowest in the grid and make sure everybody's stacks are higher than the uppermost toilet: no pumping or filtering required since methane is heavier than air and is easily detectable (only process when methane is present). Make syngas, use the H2 in a fuel cell, use the energy from that to decompose the CO and the remainder goes into the grid.-- FlyingToaster, Jul 02 2008 I think the problem is that the gas from a septic tank would be more properly labeled "biogas" and would have H2S and other gases mixed in. I toured a dump and was told that it proved uneconomical to clean up the biogas to the point where it could be sold as natural gas. Instead, it was burned on site to power a generator that supplied the needs for the dump.-- bungston, Jul 02 2008 random, halfbakery