Wastewater Into Energy

fenimor writes "A lot of electric energy could be produced from a city's wastewater, researchers at University of Toronto have discovered. The research revealed that the wastewater contained enough organic material to potentially produce 113 megawatts of electricity - 5 times more than required to operate wastewater treatment plants."

sad truth

[BinLadenMyHero]

So many cool techs.. great!
But if it doesn't turn out to make (or save) money, it will go nowhere.
Capitalism (and consumism) is ruining the planet.

And when you're done with the methane

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Use the deorderized sludge in your tabletop nanofactory to make steak- after all, the atoms are the same, it's just the arrangement that is different.

Re:sad truth

[MarsDefenseMinister]

I know what he's saying, but I'm offering another way to look at it. Every time someone asks us to cough up some money to clean up the environment, we have to ask ourselves who polluted it in the first place. We had a clean environment, and it was polluted because someone decided that the future could suffer so that a profit could be made today. This is a crime, and now to say that it's the natural order of things that we have to pay money to clean our environment is putting things backwards.

It's extortion. I'll stop polluting your environment and/or beating you up if you pay me some money. We shouldn't have to take it. You know who should have to pay for pollution? The capitalists. If they want to pollute, they should have to pay for it, not us.

Re:sad truth

[Yokaze]

> If people value living on a nice, clean planet, they will pay for such benefits.

If they can afford to. The problem is, those people who don't care have more money to profit from, hence have an economical advantage, hence are more likely to decide, wether there will be a nice, clean planet.

Companies, which exploit land and its resources in an long term unsustainable way have a faster growth than companies, which don't.
This economical advantage will drive the latter companies into a fringe market, where only few idealist buy to a premium. Any criticism will be ignored by ostracising those people as tree-huggers, and the criticism as dooms-day prophecy. Sounds familiar?
Maybe because we already have a similar situation.

Are people buying from Fair Trade companies? How many people are building an enviromentally friendly home? How about clothes? Energy production?
Why? Why should I pay the premium, when others don't. Tragedy of the common indeed.

What is the difference between a "free market", and Manchester capitalism? Do you think, the then working people in the cities, which were coughing due to the exhausts from the factories, didn't wished for cleaner air, streets and water?

The point is, their voice counted nothing until they got the vote. Guess where the enviromental regulations come from.