general interest DC Water story: making power and fertilizer from sewage

Of general interest -- since DC Water is now part of the lives of Bloomingdale residents.

Click on the link to read the entire Washington Post article.

Cue the jokes about raw sewage in Bloomingdale basements ...< ahem >

DC Water adopts Norway’s Cambi system for making power and fine fertilizer from sewage

By Ashley Halsey III, Published: April 5

     

This is a topic that one must approach delicately so as not to offend the reader’s sensibilities, but since it is a matter of importance for which you may receive a bill for some portion of $470 million, we start out with an analogy.
               
You need energy, so you eat. Through the miracle of digestion, your body sorts what you have eaten, say, a pastrami on rye with a glob of coleslaw and a dill pickle, and plucks out the nutrients — proteins, carbohydrates and sugars it needs to generate power. Then it jettisons the rest.
     
What your body jettisons disappears forever, carried along in a huge network of sewers to a plant in the southeastern corner of Washington.
       
Just like you, that plant needs energy. Through a miracle called thermal hydrolysis, it soon will be able to sort through what you have jettisoned and use it to generate electricity.
                                             
Yes, from poop will come power — 13 megawatts of it. Enough electricity to light about 10,500 homes.
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