Dog Poo Lights Up.

[Steve]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/pa...hting-the-way/1

Dogs are helpful to us in so many ways, from edging us on to get out for some exercise to helping calm down high school students. Now, The Spark Project has found another way: their waste is transformed into energy that lights street lamps.

It was unveiled last week in Cambridge, Mass. Why not do something useful with it! These authors argued that dogs and cats are not sustainable and replace them with rabbits and chickens.

The Park Spark Project is the transformation of dog waste into energy (methane) through a publicly fed methane digester. The digester is mostly buried underground except for a tube and a hand-crank that is above ground, so that people can feed the digester and stir the mixture inside. The methane created is piped to gas burning lamppost and constantly burning like an 'eternal flame'.

How else does it help? Many dog owners throw their canine companion's excrement into a garbage bin, from which it's transported to a waste facility, and where it continues to create methane, a highly combustible greenhouse gas. Funded through MIT, and in partnership with the City of Cambridge, the Park Spark project aims to show that waste can be a precious resource — methane is an effective source of energy — all the while reducing greenhouse emissions.

[Souff]

Aaaaaah, the light of my life ....

All done underground eh ..... hope that underground composter doesn't need any maintenance

[Steve]

Did you see the photo? I love it . There's legislation which makes dog breeders have septic tanks - would be worth looking into to see if its cheaper to put one of these babies in instead. Then you could light up your driveways at the same time!

[Souff]

Did you see the photo? I love it . There's legislation which makes dog breeders have septic tanks - would be worth looking into to see if its cheaper to put one of these babies in instead. Then you could light up your driveways at the same time!

Steve, unless they come in smaller versions I can see that many people would need another car space to house the 2 bins that have the crank and the feeding tube. I am all for recycling poo into something useful and if it helps to bring down somebody's lighting bill then that is good, but the way house block sizes are shrinking I cant see this taking on in suburbia, other than in parks and at the grounds of the canine council, or in some of the larger dog shelters.

Septic tanks, if they are kept functional, can work well and the run off can be used efficiently if the drainage is adequate.

Souff