Flush Light

Imagine if, every time you flushed your toilet, it generated electricity.

You could read at night by flushlight.  Instead of flattening mountains to extract coal as a power source, you could run your laptop with people power. 

It may sound odd, but a major project to transform human waste into electricity is now under construction at the largest sewage treatment plant in the region, Blue Plains in Washington DC.

Thousands of jobs for engineers, laborers, computer technicians, and others are being created as part of a series of construction projects –- costing a total of more than $3 billion -- at the wastewater treatment plant and in the city’s sewage system.

One of those hired was Antoine Blair, pictured above, a construction worker from Washington DC, who was out of work for two months when before he was hired for the project in August.  “This work came along at just the right time," said Blair, a father of four who works as a laborer for Traylor Skanska Jay Dee Joint Venture. "It’s creating a lot of jobs for people who really need it.”

Previous upgrades at Blue Plains during the 1980s had a dramatic impact on water quality in the Potomac River, which went from being a national disgrace to the site of national bass fishing tournaments.

George Hawkins, General Manager of DC Water and Sewer Authority, said the most recent round of upgrades will not only continue that improvement, but also boost the local economy.

“Thousands of jobs will be created by this project, and there is also all the all the machinery and equipment that need to be purchased --- all the pipes, for example,” Hawkins said. “So there will be a ripple effect of economic consequences even greater than just the people hired.”

Each $1 billion invested in water and sewage projects can generate 20,000 jobs in construction, engineering, and suppliers in a chain reaction that has a multiplier effect through the economy, according to a 2009 report, “Sudden Impact,” by the Clean Water Council, a coalition of engineering contractors and national organizations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Blue Plains serves about two million people in the District of Columbia and suburban Maryland and Virginia. The plant releases 370 million gallons of treated effluent a day into the Potomac River.

To meet new Chesapeake Bay pollution limits, the DC Water and Sewer Authority is building an  advanced nitrogen pollution removal system. The new technology will significantly reduce the amount of this nutrient released into the Potomac and Bay, where the pollution can spur the growth of algae and contribute to low-oxygen “dead zones.”

In addition, starting in August 2012, a caterpillar-shaped digging machine the length of a football field will begin eating a 13 mile long sewage control tunnel from Blue Plains under the Anacostia River and DC.

The tunnel will be 26 feet wide -- slightly wider than a Metro tunnel, and below the level of the city’s subway system. The massive tube will catch about three billion of gallons a year of sewage mixed with stormwater that right now overflows into the Potomac and Anacostia rivers during rains.

On top of all this, the DC Water and Sewer Authority is spending more than $400 million to build what is called a thermal hydrolysis digester to extract energy from the solids left over sewage is filtered.

Nick Passarelli, senior process engineer for DC water, explains how this will happen inside 60-foot-tall tanks called reactors.

"You can describe it as pressure cooking,” Passarelli said. “ We'll inject steam into these reactors, where the pressure is raised, and the temperature is raised.  So all the organisms in the sludge at the time, their cells will explode.”

These cellular explosions release methane, which will be burned in a generator to create 13 megawatts of electricity -- enough to light 10,000 homes. Blue Plains will use electricity to save $20 million a year in utility bills.

The digester will reduce the volume of solid waste coming out of the sewage plant by half, and sterilize what remains. That will mean 30 fewer dump trucks of biosolids a day will be hauled out of the plant to be landfilled or spread on farm fields as fertilizer.

To pay for the tunnel and upgrades, sewer rates have gone up 40 percent the last three years. But the renewable energy part of the project will pay for itself.

Perhaps other cities will follow Blue Plains’ example and turn on the flushlight.

By Tom Pelton

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Comments

[Desiree (www.greenmomster.org)]

Yet another great example that environmental protection doesn't have to be a job killer!

[Tom Pelton]

So true, Desiree!

[หนังโป๊ออนไลน์]

thank

[brooklyn plumber]

This is quite amazing! I hope the idea will get concrete because it sounds like a very good way of saving electricity and getting good care of our planet.

[Dilli Neupane]

This is a very good example for other cities to follow. Let's do something similar to save energy at each of our houses and offiecs as much as we could.

[Christopher Pia]

Interesting article. Ive always supported the green project. This sounds like it would be very beneficial to the Potomac. Good luck with the project

[plumbing]

If we could all harness all the electricity produced by toilet flushes, we could light a light bulb for eternity. Good ideas should be shared and could change our lives.