
Poop is becoming a new fuel source - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1049248/poop-is-becoming-a-new-fuel-source/
======
dredmorbius
Poop is degraded biofuel.

Biofuel has to be grown.

Growing things is limited by land area, nutrients, water, and solar
conversion.

If mammalian metabolism is ~25% efficient, than 75% of the original energy of
_eaten_ food is available as biomass. For a given population, with a daily
intake of 2500 kilocalories (1 food calorie == 1 kilocalorie), this works out
to about 1,300 barrels of oil, or 2,700 tons of coal, per million persons, or
0.2 liter per person.

Given that cooking fuel actually _is_ quite scarce in much the world, but it
strikes me that there might be better ways about this, and all the hauling,
processing, heating, and drying of fecal matter seems both costly (in real
resource terms) and a potential for contamination.

A self-sufficient sewerage system, perhaps selling off surplus electrical
generation, strikes me as a much more sensible application.

------
aaron695
Still going to kill a lot of people. We need smokeless fuels like gas or
electricity.

The water ways are still going to be deadly since it will only get a
percentage. I doubt it'd pay for toilets...

Not new.

Doesn't really make sense since if it was a good business then the functioning
sewers would be the cheapest place to start.

Cool to try stuff, cool on them, cool business, but not a HN level save the
world idea.

------
warrenm
Whole new meaning to, "this car drives like crap"

