Will U.S. Tap Sewage To Fuel Cars?

Experts say the sewage-powered car market has potential in the U.S.

“In the U.S., most hydrogen is produced from natural gas. But a 2014 study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that biogas from wastewater treatment plants, landfills, animal manure and industrial facilities could be used as a major source of hydrogen — enough to support 11 million fuel cell vehicles per year,” the Los Angeles Times recently reported.

Japan is already exploring waste-powered sustainability. The Japanese government, Mitsubishi, and Toyota have all invested in making it a reality.

“Starting late last year, drivers of vehicles like the Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity have been able to roll up to the sewage plant and power up their hydrogen fuel cell cars at what you might call the world’s first toilet-to-tank filling station,” the report said.

“The station is working only 12 hours per day but already is making enough hydrogen to fill 65 cars daily — and that could grow to 600 if all the biogas at the plant was harnessed,” the report said.

Yoshikazu Tanaka, chief engineer of the Toyota Mirai, weighed in, per the report: “Sewage sludge is completely untapped today as a fuel source. We believe it’s very promising and would bring ultimate self-sustainability to communities.”

Seiichi Hirashita, manager of the Kyushu branch of Mitsubishi Chemical Engineering, added: “We hope to be able to take our advanced technology and sell it to Europe and the U.S.”

In the U.S., one state in particular, may have the potential to benefit from this innovation: California, one of the most “biogas-rich states” in the country, according to the news report.

“But if the Bay Area and Sacramento tapped all their landfills, sewer plants and other biogas-generating locations to make hydrogen, the region could support 527,300 fuel cell cars, the Renewable Energy Laboratory’s survey projected,” the report said. “The city was ranked No. 2 in the nation in potential to produce hydrogen from sewage plants.”

In California’s Fountain Valley, FuelCell Energy Inc. started the world’s first facility to convert “sewage into electrical power for an industrial facility and renewable hydrogen for transportation fuel,” Scientific American reported. “The energy station produces approximately 100 kilograms of renewable hydrogen per day, which is enough to fuel up to 50 cars.”

To read more about recycling wastewater energy visit Water Online’s Sludge And Biosolids Processing Solutions Center.