As opposed to crappier fuels
Some Norwegian buses will soon be running on a fuel no one dares call unsustainable:
With Norway’s ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2050 Oslo City Council began investigating alternatives to fossil fuel-powered public transport and decided on biomethane.
Biomethane is a by-product of treated sewage. Microbes break down the raw material and release the gas, which can then be used in slightly modified engines. Previously at one of the sewage plants in the city half of the gas was flared off, emitting 17,00 tonnes of CO2. From September 2009, this gas will be trapped and converted into biomethane to run 200 of the city’s public buses.
Not only is it waste material, it’s fairly cheap:
[A]side from the intial set-up costs, we expect to see an average saving of €0.40 per litre of fuel (based on an average diesel price of €0.67 per litre compared with biomethane at €0.27 per litre).
At current exchange rates, that’s less than a buck-fifty a gallon for the, um, reclaimed fuel. It’s not perfectly carbon-neutral — the processing of the gas into fuelstuffs uses some electricity — but the idea is ingenious, if not easy to appreciate this close to dinnertime.
Don Smith »
30 January 2009 · 3:53 am
The inevitable question: “What is it going to smell like coming out of the tail pipe?”
Good news and bad news.
Both Los Angeles and Las Vegas have announced that they are going to start recycling treated sewage water by re-introducing it into underground water reservoirs. Because of shrinking supplies in the western United States.
That is the bad news.
Now for the Good News … “There probably isn’t going to be enough of it to go around.”
BCO
fillyjonk »
30 January 2009 · 5:46 am
I suppose the logical next step is to attach a sort of collecting gas mask to all the cows and sheep and harvest their burps.
(I always make a joke in Gen Bio when I talk about how ruminants burp up methane, about how it’s a good thing cattle neither have opposable thumbs nor join fraternities, or else there would be a lot of young bulls out there trying to light their burps. It never gets a laugh. I suppose it’s perhaps a bit too whimsical and esoteric. Or maybe the fratboys get offended, I don’ t know.)
Gabrielle Dolly »
30 January 2009 · 8:16 am
Um… But it’s still burning hydrocarbons. So how is that a net carbon savings or whatever lie they’re calling it?
GFD
CGHill »
30 January 2009 · 8:38 am
As with all such equations, a liberal application of a Fudge Factor.
anon in tx »
30 January 2009 · 3:57 pm
Methane is a gas, I don’t know what they mean by euro/liter
1 Liter Diesel = 36500 BTU = 1021.6 Liters methane (@ STP)
or 1.8 Liter liquid CH4 (either refrigerated at -116.8 °F or compressed to 667 psi)
The BTU equivalent price is .37 euro/liter (liquid CH4); since neither refrigeration nor compression is free .27 euro/l is a losing proposition.
Lisa paul »
31 January 2009 · 10:07 am
In San Francisco, we have a successful pilot program to turn dog poo from dog parks into methane fuel. by the end of the year, most of the City’s schools will probably be heated by it.
Poo. It’s the one resource you can count on always being renewed!
CGHill »
31 January 2009 · 10:19 am
Which reminds me of the story of the time someone broke into the winter home of the circus and stole a bag of what turned out to be elephant dung. At the inevitable press conference, the manager was philosophical about the loss: “Unexpected, yes, but it’s nothing we can’t replace.”
Tatyana »
31 January 2009 · 10:54 am
Expect parents pooling money to buy electric heaters (or charcoal for bonfires) in San Francisco schools by the end of the year.