A glance of the future: how poo and boogie might power our homes

Image: Time Out

Do you know that Chongming has vowed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025? The island on the eastern side of Shanghai has installed 500 megawatts of renewable energy capacity by the end of 2020 and the number is still growing. That amount of electricity has the capacity to power more than 100,000 households, with the surplus being transmitted to Shanghai and neighbouring Jiangsu Province. Pretty impressive, huh? 

But Shanghai isn’t the only city thinking pretty creatively when it comes to renewable energy. Venice, for instance, has turned to its notoriously smelly, neon-green algae, which can be used to capture methane – a renewable fuel source. The city is building a 1.7 billion RMB biomass-powered steam generator that it hopes will soon meet more than 50 percent of its energy demand.

Then there’s Grand Junction in Colorado, USA, which has been harnessing another kind of biofuel: human poo. The city processes raw sewage through a wastewater treatment plant, turning it into a natural gas called biomethane, which is then used to power public services like bin lorries, buses and street-cleaning vehicles.

Also getting in on the act is Buenos Aires. The Argentinian capital has started capturing methane leaking from decaying trash and turning it into power. Because of that, the Norte III landfill site achieves something of an environmental double whammy: it finds a use for immense amounts of waste and reduces the volume of methane (a greenhouse gas) escaping into the atmosphere. 

But energy innovation isn’t all about gross stuff. Scientists in Rotterdam have recently developed a way of generating electricity… by dancing. A startup called Energy Floors has created ‘floor modules’ that allow clubs and other buildings to power themselves entirely by people moving around those spaces.

All of this is pretty damn inspiring. Perhaps someday soon using clubbers, stinky water and rubbish tips to generate energy will become the norm worldwide. Who’d have thought your next shit or boogie might help save the planet?

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