Untapped Sources of Energy

You might think that this story is full of crap, but I think that it has some merit.

More than half of the 15 trillion gallons of sewage Americans flush annually is processed into sludge that gets spread on farmland, lawns, and home vegetable gardens. In theory, recycling poop is the perfect solution to the one truly unavoidable byproduct of human civilization. But sludge-based as fertilizer can contain anything that goes down the drain—from Prozac flushed down toilets to motor oil hosed from factory floors. That's why an increasing number of cities have begun to explore an alternative way to dispose of sludge: advanced poop-to-power plants.

By one estimate, a single American's daily sludge output can generate enough electricity to light a 60-watt bulb for more than nine hours. Here are the six most innovative ways that human waste is being converted to watts:

Read the whole story and learn about:

Poop-Eating Bacteria
Turd Cell Smashers
Geological Toilets
Feces Ponds
Gassifiers
Poop Pyrotechnics

Who knows, maybe one day you'll fill up your car at the outhouse. ;)