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Bill Gates has turned his philanthropic sights to cleaner energy solutions in developing countries and his current pet project is a new waste-to-fuel facility in Accra, Ghana. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is calling it a "Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility," but we know that behind that impressive title, it's really just human feces being turned into usable fuel.
The facility is being funded by a $1.5 million grant from the foundation and is being developed by Columbia University professor Kartik Chandran, Waste Enterprises and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. It will process waste sludge into two energy sources: biodiesel and methane.
While a cheap source of fuel will be of great benefit to the area, the possibly even greater benefit is that it will also keep human waste out of the local water supply, meaning less water-borne illnesses and a better quality of life for the local people.
via Fast Company
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written by Gavon, June 16, 2011
Bill would do the world a large favour if he installed a ship load of those 'digesters' in his own company and applied it to his software.
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written by sarah, June 19, 2011
I'm always wondering why we don't do more of this. It certainly is a renewable resource. We need more refuse to energy projects...not to give excuses for making waste... but, at least in this case, waste must be made. Yes yes I realize cost ratios dictate much of what we decide to put our effort toward, or resources, or inventiveness... but seriously we know what to do with oil... the real innovation and invention is making energy out of what is presumed a pile of *&^%/garbage. or, alternatively, we could pump it deep underground filling the holes where oil once was... I can almost guarantee in some years it will be oil once more.
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written by Mountaincatbob, June 23, 2011
I always have to wonder, though why we can't get funding in the USA to build waste to energy plants for municipalities.
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written by Ron Kirchner, June 23, 2011
Probably there is no more efficient way in the bioeneergy sector, than combining wastewater treatment and energy production. Such plants have a lots of benefits.
It also has effects on climate protection, because the produced and highly climate relevant methane of the microorganisms will not be released directly into the atmosphere. Burned to CO2 it is at least not that climate active anymore.
Thanks for the nice article and thanks to such an inspiring foundation.
best wishes,
ron
It also has effects on climate protection, because the produced and highly climate relevant methane of the microorganisms will not be released directly into the atmosphere. Burned to CO2 it is at least not that climate active anymore.
Thanks for the nice article and thanks to such an inspiring foundation.
best wishes,
ron
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For every time you hear someone speak ill of him, ask them how many clean energy facilities they have bankrolled in Ghana.
(Great post by the way Megan.)