• Question: can you make power out of dirty water

    Asked by dan33 to Mark on 16 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Mark Greaves

      Mark Greaves answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Hi Dan,

      Good question! Yes we can and do make power from dirty water, more specifically ‘sludge’ as we call it, or generally speaking poo.

      We take the sludge (or poo) from the sewage then send it for digestion. The digester gets the sludge warm, this causes it to break down. One of the by-products of this process is methane gas. We use this gas in Combined Heat & Power engines to generate both heat (for the digesters) and electricity.

      We currently own and operate the largest thermal hydrolysis plant in the world. This is a fancy process that allows to get more gas from the sludge. Click on the link below for more about this plant…
      http://www.cambi.no/wip4/plant.epl?cat=10643&id=463527

      If you want to know more please ask and I’ll get back to you.

      Mark

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