Canon EOS 5D
ƒ/8
24 mm
1/8
1250

This is one of four large air pumps at the San Jose/Santa Clara sewage treatment plant. The motors run off the methane gas that is excreted as waste by anaerobic bacteria in the solid waste digester. These pumps bubble air through the dark grey/brown liquid that enters the sewage plant, feeding the aerobic bacteria that decompose the organic material and ammonia. Those bacteria remove 90% of the wastewater impurities and produce a reusable biosolid for soil.

After 18 hours of bio-processing and filtration, 99% of the impurities have been removed, in a process that mimics the way nature purifies water, but at a greatly accelerated rate.

23 responses to “Gas Passer”

  1. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    *hehe* You farted.

    Reply
  2. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    On a more serious note, something I’ve always wondered about is the effect of drainage treatment chemicals on bio-sewage treatment like this. You know, the seriously basic (from a Ph perspective) stuff people periodically dump down their drains. Does it cause a big problem? I imagine it could kill a bunch of bacteria and throw off the reactor.

    The answer, as I see it, is simply brute force. The chemicals problem get diluted by the overwhelming volume of the sewage, and end up not being concentrated enough to kill the bacteria. Then again, those chemicals are similar to pool treatments, which use very low concentrations.

    Is this the type of thing that should keep me awake at night? Maybe I need to go get my heart broken so I can have something else to be my mental screensaver.

    Reply
  3. Josh Thompson Avatar
    Josh Thompson

    @Todd: I Googled some relevant terms to try to answer your question. I didn’t get a direct answer, but there is this article in the NY Times which says:

    So why not use the sludge captured in sewage treatment plants to replace some of the 67 million pounds of nitrogenous fertilizer farmers apply to their land every single day? Because it’s not just organic waste churning through the sewers. If it were, then sludge would be a farmer’s dream come true.

    Sludge is also shampoo, and Drano, and paint from brushes washed in sinks, and antifreeze poured down gutters, and heavy metals and industrial waste dumped both legally and illegally. And no one knows what happens when all those contaminants are concentrated and composted and applied to the land.

    That said, I know that, as Jurvetson says, sewage sludge is used for fertilizer. I remember my dad telling me when I was a kid that he was putting the Milwaukee sewer system on the lawn.

    I’m not sure how this jives with the Times article, but I think your instinct is correct — bad chemicals that go down the drain usually remain bad.

    —
    Seen on your photo stream. (?)

    Reply
  4. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    Those look like electrical motors, do they then convert the methane to electricity on site somehow? It’s interesting, this is the sort of conversion that would be useful at a garbage dump.

    Reply
  5. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Good question. Do you mean the big engine in the back of the photo? I thought the fan and generator was in the foreground, but I am no expert in this….

    They did mention generating several kW locally… and the grass is all green there too. =)

    Reply
  6. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    @Josh

    Perhaps the microorganisms eat up the organic waste, and then the micorganisms are physically separated from the liquid solution through a spin off or other method. Then the toxic chemicals would be contained to a sludge which you handle separately.

    I am sure they don’t do it this way, but it would be rad if the microorganisms were the phototactic ones which are attracted to light. Because then you could let them separate themselves from the toxic muck. The muck would run slowly through a pipe, which would have side channels of light, and the bacteria would physically separate themselves from the non-living junk, as illustrated below, where an @ is a bacteria, and 0 is general muck

    (LIGHT)
    |———————————-
    | @ @@@@@@@@@ @@ —–> (FLOW)
    | @ |——————————
    | @ |
    | @ |————————————————
    000000@0000000000@00000@000
    000@0000@0000@0000000000000
    00@0000@0000000@0000000@00
    —————————————————-

    Ok, so after making my diagram I am super 100% certain that is not how the seperate the bio* from the sludge. However is might be an interesting way to cordon off bioengineered bugs.

    (edit: flickr does funny things with spacing, so I redid the diagram)

    Reply
  7. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    I suspect that the huge box in the back is the fan/compressor, and that the smaller boxes in front are motor, gearbox and, hmm, dunno what that black cylinder in front is, exactly, though. I’m sometimes soundly thumped in your guessing games, so my guess is as good as anyones… I’m just glad to hear they’re using the gas for our use instead of treating it like waste.

    I just read about the troubles of having methane build up in closed down coal mine sections, which shouldn’t be a problem, it should be an energy opportunity. Hopefully someone comes up with to use that stuff for our usage. Or even enhance its generation to make it a win. I wonder what reacts with coal to make the methane.. C02 plus coal probably wouldn’t do it, but there should be some way of coercing CO2 to use extra energy to give us something we want…

    Reply
  8. tonyjurvetson Avatar
    tonyjurvetson

    The big engine in the back is a regular large gas combustion engine running on methane, like the smaller bi-fueled Volvo has for years:
    http://www.truehealth.org/volvomethanecars.html

    The box in the middle houses the air compressor and the generator in the front makes electricity.

    But the future might hold more exotic uses:
    science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/04may_methaneblast.htm

    Advice: So be careful with matches!

    Reply
  9. tonyjurvetson Avatar
    tonyjurvetson

    This is how they make fertilizer. Open the link and click on "how do they make this stuff" for a cool video. http://www.milorganite.com/home/

    Reply
  10. OriginalGunner Avatar
    OriginalGunner

    I wonder if there are statistics on the composition of the sewage and how this relates to our diet and human ecology. Has it become more "synthetic"? Has the proportion of soap changed over the years? What has the addition of high-fructose corn syrup done to our waste? Is it GIGO, garbage-in-(worse) garbage out? I bet this location will be the source of "grey-goo" when we start ingesting nano-technology.

    Reply
  11. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    *wave* Hey thanks, Tony! That’s one huge engine, if I’m looking at the right box.. I read about that new rocket engine, very cool, and luckily for us, methane isn’t too hard to make all things considered.

    Are you Mr Jurvetson Senior, or a brother of Steve’s? The more Jurvetsons the better, I’m thinking! *grin*

    Reply
  12. Happy Tinfoil Cat Avatar
    Happy Tinfoil Cat

    My uncle worked for a sewage treatment plant so we got all the fertilizer we wanted. One stipulation, it was never to be used for gardening, only for our lawn. This type of fertilizer has been tied to Lou Gehrig’s disease and since debunked.

    We need a miniature one of these dodads in every home. ;^)

    Reply
  13. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Wow! Tony Jurvetson?! Steve´s Dad? So Welcome, sir!!!! Pleased to meet you! As Ben said, the more Jurvetsons around the better!

    Awesome! 😀

    Reply
  14. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Oh, and btw… talking Tony´s comment… I guessed somehow right about the fertilizer thingy!!!

    Reply
  15. tonyjurvetson Avatar
    tonyjurvetson

    Steve is my son and here am I with my dad:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/727690/in/set-9932/
    Leino, who often comments here, is my sister’s son and is a neighbour of Mimosa.

    It is a small world after all…Thank you for the warm wellcome.

    Reply
  16. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    So good! Thank you for signing up and joining us… it´s a very small world indeed, bet it! And this internet thing has made it even smaller, fortunately!!!! So very welcome.

    Leino is da best, he rocks! :-))))

    And I do remember that pic of you and your dad… as it made me remember about my dad and his dad too…

    Casually… my grandpa (but from mother´s heritage)… his name was Antonio, born in Portugal but made American (he actually had 5 nationalities)… He was called Tony too. And from all my grandparents, he is the one I would have loved to be able to meet… outstanding brilliant man (he died when my mum was 3, so meeting him was fairly impossible).

    They say that some features in people leap one generation… so we inherit things from our grandpas rather than from our parents directly… I so much feel this is the case with Tony and me… Just if you only regard the passion we both feel/felt about English language…

    Reply
  17. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    Ah, so that is the Mimosa connection! Excellent. You’re quite welcome Tony, good to meet all three generations to one extent or another. We have quite a bit of fun around these parts, though it takes some extra thinking caps sometimes. Luckily Steve does have a monkey that hands them out, well and takes them too, but what’s a good chase between friends?

    That’s too bad about your Grandfather Alieness, but I guess memories cut both ways. Tell us what we missed and let us meet those we never got to meet.

    Reply
  18. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    "…but I guess memories cut both ways. Tell us what we missed and let us meet those we never got to meet."

    That was certainly so very wise, Ben…very well said.

    Reply
  19. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    *smile* thanks, just came to me. So many things we wouldn’t know without memories passed down. I’m not very good at remembering these stories however, ah well.

    Reply
  20. darb2723 Avatar
    darb2723

    Hey, Hey! we’re getting ready for balls this year (Big Plans!), hope to catch you there!

    Reply
  21. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I was wearing my BALLS shirt today! (hey – do mind if I try to convert your Onyx3 video from BALLS into something visible online, like Youtube)…

    I was wearing the shirt at DairyAire…. which has a topical logo to this thread…

    What a wonderful thread to come back to. Thanks y’all.

    Reply
  22. yankee tirade Avatar
    yankee tirade

    Waste Treatment ! I had a job years ago where I inspected Industrial facilities, and did several of these.

    Thanks for bringing back the memories.

    Reply
  23. Discover5TV Avatar
    Discover5TV

    Thank you for sharing! I used your photo in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voSHHVvj7-8

    Reply

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