{"id":13936,"date":"2023-10-03T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shieldagency.com\/blog\/?p=13936"},"modified":"2023-09-18T12:35:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T18:35:52","slug":"oregon-is-turning-sewage-into-an-endless-supply-of-green-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shieldagency.com\/blog\/oregon-is-turning-sewage-into-an-endless-supply-of-green-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Energy: Oregon Is Turning Sewage Into an Endless Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Good Good Good<\/a> | SEP 7, 2023 | Green Energy | Shield Insurance Agency Blog<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Converting sewage into heat and electricity offers a compelling proposition: more waste equals more green energy and clean power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the summer of 2020, as wildfires burned across more than a million acres in Oregon, workers at Clackamas County\u2019s water treatment facility started calling each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From their homes, they could see that the towers of flames were closing in on the wastewater treatment plant. Power was failing all over the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the facility lost power, it could flood the Willamette River with untreated waste, causing untold environmental damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the facility remained powered up and the Willamette was spared. But with wildfires and extreme weather increasingly common, the incident underscored how generating and storing renewable power on-site could build resiliency into the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely energy-consumptive to treat wastewater,\u201d says Dave Moldal, program manager at Energy Trust of Oregon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the region grows in population, the more energy the wastewater plant requires. But what if increasing volumes of wastewater could provide<\/em> the treatment plant with more energy rather than consume it? That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s been happening at Clackamas County\u2019s Tri-City Water Resource Recovery Facility for the past seven months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since August 2021, the plant has been pumping out renewable power produced from methane, a natural byproduct of human waste decomposing in an oxygen-free environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, this loop of green energy represents a powerful example of how waste can become something we benefit from rather than expend resources disposing of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By turning human waste into power, wastewater treatment facilities have the potential to become energy generators instead of consumers, while creating clean water that\u2019s returned to the local ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When wastewater arrives at Clackamas Water Environment Services\u2019 treatment plant, it contains pretty much what you\u2019d expect \u2014 human waste, paper, food, soap, sand \u2014 plus a random assortment of items that people accidentally flush or drop into drains, like a miniature Stormtrooper helmet, a Pee-wee Herman doll, and a rubber elephant, all of which are proudly on display at the facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the individuals who work here don\u2019t consider this to be a mere waste treatment facility. Instead, they see it as a place where clean water and fertilizer for non-food crops is produced. And now, they\u2019ve added a third item to the list of beneficial resources they churn out: green energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit the full story at Good Good Good<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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