GHANA: Bill Gates funds human waste to biofuel project

  1. Posted on Wednesday 29 June 2011 - 12:14
    accreporter
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    Kent Mensah, AfricaNews editor in Accra, Ghana
    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a human waste to biofuel project in Ghana. The foundation awarded a Columbia University professor Kartik Chandran a $1.5 million grant to develop a "Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility" in the country along with Waste Enterprisers, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
    Biofuel pump
    The yet to be established facility, according to the fastcompany.com, will turn organic compounds from fecal sludge into biodiesel and methane.

    Some 2.1 million city dwellers around the world depend on non-piped solutions to their sewage needs. That is to say, their waste is going into septic tanks, storage devices, or just being dumped directly into the water supply.

    All that fecal matter in the water--especially in places that also lack water treatment facilities--generates an incredible amount of waterborne illness.

    If Chandran's project comes to fruition, it will both provide a cheap source of fuel in an energy-poor region and minimize the amount of fecal sludge that ends up in local bodies of water.

    "By training tomorrow’s engineers in sustainable approaches to ‘resource and energy recovery’ rather than 'wastewater treatment,' a sea-change can be achieved in the way we perceive of and manage human waste. In fact, the term 'wastewater' is already archaic.

    “Wastewater is, after all, just water with a different chemical and biological composition," explained Chandran in a statement.

    It is hoped that if more human waste to biofuel plants are built in the developing world in the near future it will at least begin to cut down on the 1.8 million people who die each year from water-transmitted diseases like cholera.

Reactions

  1. Posted on Friday 08 July 2011 18:39
    winnieleong
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    Winnie Leong
    15 berichten
    Lid sinds July 2011
    New York

    A rich man still the rich man, he can do whatever he want to the world, of course investing in this will definitely benefit to the world. Max Pure Lens

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