US cities reducing their fossil fuel usage by 50% by using sewage sludge as a fuel.
Getting Off Oil Monday, December 13th, 2010These are not oil reserve tanks. They are sewage treatment tanks. The fuel of the future for every city around the World. The citizens of the cities contribute to this renewable fuel supply 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
As a result of a demonstration project partly sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in cooperation with the Indianapolis Center for Advanced Research, the City of Indianapolis, Indiana, realized a 34% fossil fuel savings by incinerating sewage sludge. At the same time, sludge throughput was increased 10%. In addition to these proven savings, operational downtime for repairs was reduced, maintenance costs were reduced, and air pollution was reduced. The air pollution reduction allowed Indianapolis to cancel a $3,000,000 construction program for air pollution abatement.
Other cities incinerating sewage sludge in the United States that have initiated the fuel efficient mode of operation have saved even more fuel than Indianapolis. Nashville, Tennessee, reduced its fossil fuel usage 40%; Buffalo, New York, reduced its fossil fuel usage by 47% from design expectations; Hartford, Connecticut, reduced its fossil fuel usage by 51%; and Jacksonville, Florida has reduced its fossil fuel usage by over 50%.
These savings result from installing additional instrumentation and controls (often not required at newer facilities), modifying the incinerator operating methods, and training the operators to operate the facilities more efficiently. At Indianapolis, it cost $20,000 per incinerator for instrumentation and operator training. This was an older plant and required a maximum amount of new controls and instrumentation; however, the payback for this $20,000 was less than three months due to the reduction in fossil fuel use based on an oil price of $0.264 per litre ($1.00 per gallon). In the other cities where instrumentation controls were adequate, the cost for developing the now operating mode and training the operators averaged $75,000 per city.
Sludge is a huge environmental problem all over the world but it doesn’t have to be as we now have the know how and technology to turn this problem into a clean energy solution. Not only does this create a new energy source for all major cities around the World it also cleans up the environment. The more we use sewage sludge as a renewable fuel the cleaner our water supply becomes. We can actually clean up our lakes and rivers by using sewage sludge as a fuel source.
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