Ex-Secretary of California EPA Argues for Poop Power
According to Tamminen, this is a valuable energy source. (image: personal.psu.edu)
One man’s trash is another’s treasure, so the saying goes. According to Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, one man’s poop may be another’s power supply. In an op-ed for CNBC this week, Tamminen argues for a sustainable energy policy that includes making use of waste products of many kinds—including human and animal ones. At issue is the question of renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which set legal thresholds for how much alternative energy—wind, solar, geothermal—must be included in the power supply. RPS systems are currently in place in 27 states and D.C, and California’s are the most comprehensive, calling for 33 percent of the state’s total energy consumption to be sustainably generated by 2020. To avoid creating a competitive market based in practices that should really be eliminated, as in energy derived from burning trash or even co-generation using heat from traditional power plants, RPS legislation does not currently allow for waste products of any kind to be included as “renewable” resources. Elimination isn’t going to be eliminated anytime soon, though, which leaves agricultural areas and municipalities overburdened with sewage and manure that currently isn’t worth….well, you know.
The average cow generates 18 gallons of waste per day—that’s just one cow, now think of all the hundreds of thousands of cows (and pigs, and sheep, and chickens) in farms and feedlots all across this country. Many such operations are so oversupplied with manure that they wind up funneling it into fetid ponds that stink up the surrounding countryside, contaminate groundwater, and release pounds of greenhouse gases. So, not only would repurposing all that poop create a steady stream of available energy, but it would also remove a fairly major contributor to climate change. Converting human sewage systems to a no-waste model would also save countless gallons of water every year, as well as the energy required to transport, treat and dispose of it.
Of course, entrepreneurs all over have already realized the potential of this unlikely market. There are scores of projects already underway across the country, many of which we’ve covered here on HeatingOil.com: Some of the most promising technologies include methane capture, fuel made from manure, and sewage used as a growth medium for algae that can be converted into biofuel. There is also the looming possibility of federal EPA regulation of methane from farming, under the EPA’s new endangerment finding that allows for greater policing of gases that contribute to global warming. Tamminen’s argument is that reclassifying human and animal waste as renewable would open up the possibility of tax credits to help develop existing programs, and to generate hundreds of others. Think of it as the fertilizer that will grow our new, greener, energy grid.
