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Nov 10, 2008 5:53 pm US/Eastern
Baltimore Turns City's Sewage Into Electricity
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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Baltimore is going green. The city is turning sewage into electricity.
Baltimore is going green. The city is turning sewage into electricity.
Suzanne Collins reports new technology at the Back River Sewage Treatment Plant will save a million dollars a year.
Everything that goes down the drain in and around Baltimore, even what's flushed down the toilet, ends up in funny shaped, gold domes.
It's then turned into methane gas, which has been burned off into the atmosphere. That's until now. From now on, it will be turned into electricity.
"The waste that goes to the flares we simply draw in from underground pipes with some pumps. We clean this gas and get all the bad elements out of it, so it's suitable to be put in an internal combustion engine," said Mark Ramsay, Johnson Controls.
The electricity generated from the sewage will provide 20 percent of the power needed to run the Back River Treatment Facility, and the payoff is big. It adds up to the sum of $1.4 million a year.
The mayor, who cut the ribbon on new co-generation plant, remembers learning of the idea a long time ago.
"So to see this come to fruition now after six or seven years of discussion, it's really phenomenal, and one question I asked of Johnson Controls is how can we create more of this that can benefit other buildings," said Mayor Sheila Dixon.
The city thought it would take 14 years to pay off the plant with the energy savings that they're getting, but instead, because the cost of energy has gone so high, it's only expected to take seven years.
Now the well-known flares are going out, but the payoff is tax dollars saved, less emissions from dirty coal-fired plants and a step toward a greener America. This is also said to prevent about 13 million pounds of carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming from entering the atmosphere.
The mayor asked Johnson Controls Monday if they have ideas on how to expand on the idea to power other city buildings.
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