Sludge Watch ==> Sewage should power, not pollute, the Great Lakes

[Maureen Reilly]

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Detroit News

Sewage should power, not pollute, the Great Lakes

Andy Guy


Sewage treatment plants can become potent power producers instead of Great 
Lakes polluters if Michigan rekindles its spirit of innovation and thinks 
sustainably.

If "waste equals food" were the prevailing mindset, raw human sewage would 
generate electricity and organic fertilizer, wastewater treatment plants 
would double as power stations, and Michigan residents would keep more of 
their energy dollars in the state.

Instead, municipalities handle sewage as a nuisance, and the Great Lakes 
regularly get polluted. Twenty of the region's larger cities alone annually 
dump enough untreated sewage into the Great Lakes to fill 100 Olympic-sized 
swimming pools every day, according to a Sierra Legal Defense Fund report.

"We have sewage and waste all over," said Greg Mulder, a power specialist 
with the Grand Rapids-based Coffman Electrical Equipment Co. "But the debate 
is about water pollution, not energy production. Looking at the issues more 
holistically enables us to see new and more economical solutions to both 
challenges."

Michigan's 21st Century Energy Plan projects a significant need for 
additional power. The question is whether Michigan will accept traditional 
technologies such as coal plants -- and their environmental consequences -- 
as the primary solution or move more toward cutting-edge clean energy 
sources that actually help solve its environmental problems.

Mulder points out that, using a specially equipped technological tool called 
a digester, a municipal treatment plant serving 10,000 people could generate 
enough electricity to power as many as 75 homes. A digester converts raw 
sewage into electricity and benign byproducts like compost.

If Michigan municipalities used digesters to generate electricity from their 
wastewater treatment plants, they could simultaneously protect the Great 
Lakes, help stabilize energy costs and reap a long-term financial payback. 
The statewide economic implications are impressive because Michigan spends 
about $27 billion annually on energy. Most of that money -- $18 billion -- 
leaves the state, because nearly all of the fuel that utilities burn for 
energy in Michigan comes from outstate sources.

"For every megawatt of (waste to energy) you make in the state, you keep a 
half-million dollars in the state," says Mulder, who estimates that 
converting all of Michigan's sewage into electricity could produce between 
30 and 50 megawatts each year -- enough to power more than 25,000 households 
annually.

His firm, which regularly partners with high-tech energy companies around 
the nation, is exploring converting sewage into energy for Ann Arbor. It's 
also engaged in similar discussions with other municipal plants around the 
state.

But the digester -- a tool that is more than 100 years old -- has yet to 
seriously catch on in Michigan even as it proliferates across the United 
States and Europe. That's because the state's traditional engineers and 
power companies do not believe the technology works.

The state needs to change that outdated attitude by establishing innovative 
policies and economic incentives that make sewage plants part of the energy 
solution, rather than just another Great Lakes menace.

Andy Guy directs the Michigan Land Use Institute's Great Lakes Project. 
E-mail letters to the editor to letters at detnews.com.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070214/OPINION01/702140334/1008