Soon every flush of a local toilet will help fuel a city vehicle.
Hamilton is set to become the first Canadian municipality to produce biofuel for its fleet from human waste, thanks to a $30-million infrastructure grant.
"We can solve environmental problems and make money at the same time," said Jim Harnum, senior director of water and wastewater. "Hamilton is being a leader."
The technology, used in several European countries for decades, will allow the city to harvest methane gas from sludge instead of wasting the valuable resource.
The city must have the project done by March 2011.
Last week, the federal and provincial governments each committed $10 million to the new system. Hamilton will contribute the final one-third.
To start, Hamilton plans to increase its holding capacity for decomposing waste.
The city will also invest in technology that will crack open dead bacteria that have been used to break down solid waste.
Forcing the bacteria open allows energy to escape. The process will increase the energy recovery from 5 per cent to nearly 70 per cent.
After the additional gas is collected, a new purification system will separate the methane.
The biofuel will then be used to supply 110 water and wastewater vehicles.
Retrofitting vehicles will cost about $6,000 each, but Harnum expects $1 million in annual fuel savings will pay back the expense quickly.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 8:22AM
Reader Comments (1)
This is great. It's at least a step in the right direction. I like how Europe has been doing it for decades and we're just jumping on board... but somehow we're a leader in this. Well, one person's leader is another person's straggler, I guess. Oh well.