Making Biogas for a family of four with 2 cows

A very simple and effective way of using cow dung to produce not only enough methane for an entire family but also high grade fertilizier. Total costs for free cooking gas and fertilizer for a life? $60

The International Year of Chemistry 2011 (IYC 2011) will celebrate the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind.


100 years ago, Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize for her discoveries of radium and polonium. To celebrate this, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) are funding activities to promote Chemistry around the world.

If you would like to take part, you can get a submission form at http://www.chemistry2011.org/. Get started today!

Dutch Sewage Treatment Plants Produce Energy from Waste

It takes a lot of energy to turn sewage into potable water but the times are changing. In a new development, Dutch water treatment plants will start producing their own energy.

In Holland, at least 750 GWh of energy is used to treat sewage waste every year. This ammount of energy is comparable to the ammount that a city of a million people uses in a year. Of the 750 GWh, the sewage treatment plants produce only 150 GWh from the biogas produced in the internal treatment process. In the near future and with current technology all 750 GWh will be produced from the interal biogas produced. And this is only the beginning.

The ambition is that a sewage treatment plant that serves 100,000 people would produce not only the energy for the plant itself but for a further 225 households. This would mean that 36,000 households would be powered from waste treatment every year.

The website http://www.energiefabriek.com/ has produced a map of the energy that can be produced in this way.