[Greenbuilding] ... device to purify human waste, make compost and generate electricity

Carol Steinfeld carol at ecowaters.org
Fri Aug 17 11:56:01 CDT 2012


Great points, Sanjay. Although the situation is very complex and variable,
so it's hard to make brief sum-ups.

There are many wastewater-fed microbial fuel cell technologies already
developed, but as is pointed out here in Silicon Valley: the challenge
isn't the technology, it's the adoption.

Gates Foundation has been told by many that it needs to fund implementation
models, not high tech that's not going to be adopted, financed, and
maintained.
But Bill Gates made his fortune on technology, so he thinks the world's
problems need a technology fix funded with cash.

But it's good that more technologies have been highlighted, such as this
one.

Unfortunately, the Gates money dump is elbowing out attention to the actual
challenges to be met.
Stanford and some institutes have conducted gatherings to address the
question of whether the Gates funding is helpful or if it somewhat
displaces more sustainable nonprofit solutions work.

Carol


On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 8:42 AM, sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk>wrote:

> Urine diversion may prevent electricity generation (from article: the
> organic waste matter is the fuel and nitrate is the oxidant)
>
> IMO - it makes more sense to use the urine as a fertilizer than generate
> electricity - those people who don't have access to electricity know how to
> use latrines at night, usually by using 10 cent candles.
>
> What I find offensive about these projects (composting toilets for the
> poor) is that they miss 2 vital issues:
>
> 1) Composting toilets projects have been tried many many times, they FAIL.
> In fact toilet projects in general fail because they are technology
> orientated. The fact is (and I know this from experience) that people who
> live without toilets don't really want them. The real issue is changing
> their mindset about water and sanitation, before giving them a solution.
>
> 2) The real problem (from an environment perspective) is us, not the poor.
> We need to change before we can ask others to change. What gives us the
> right to ask others to use technology we don't use them selves? If we
> adopted eco-friendly technology, the poor will follow suit.
>
> ~sanjay
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com>
> *To:* sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk>; Green Building <
> greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, August 17, 2012 9:50 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Greenbuilding] ... device to purify human waste, make
> compost and generate electricity
>
> sounds intriguing but also very complicated. A urine diverting
> (composting) toilet, presumably would accomplish some of the same things
> and has no moving parts.
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 5:55 AM, sanjay jain <sanjayjainuk at yahoo.co.uk>wrote:
>
>
> http://www.umass.edu/loop/content/engineer-builds-low-cost-device-purify-human-waste-make-compost-and-generate-electricity
>
>
>
>
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