Is Poo the Key to All Our Problems? By Amelia Cayton Year 10 I will be exploring a few of the innovative and
past decade, from either burning sludge or
surprising new uses of poo such as its use as an
methane derived from its 13 million customers'
alternate power source, paper and fuel for cars
toilets. Northumbrian Water currently uses
to name a few and whether these new uses will
anaerobic digestion to capture the methane and
solve the problem of climate change taking
carbon dioxide released by bacteria, digesting
recycling to a whole new level.
the sludge and using it to drive its gas engines
First of all, Poo Power.
to create electricity. It also injects some gas
The UN has calculated that if all of the world's
directly into the grid. It has two biogas plants,
human waste were to be collected and used for
which together have reduced the firm's annual
biogas generation, the value could be as high as
£40m electricity bill by around 20%. In total it
$9.5 billion (or in other words enough to supply
has saved the firm £15m a year. Rival UK water
the electricity for 138 million households, the
firms such as Severn Trent and Wessex Water
equivalent of powering all of Indonesia, Brazil
are doing similar things to Northumbrian, and
and Ethiopia combined). So, it's possible in
biogas production is common in countries such
theory, but is it possible in reality? The water
as China, Sweden and Germany.
firm Thames Water has successfully been using
So… yes, we have the technology and poo-power
human toilet waste to make electricity for the
is already in practice. But what are the
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