Flush for Fuel

What's the next hot commodity in the green revolution? Wind? Solar? Waves? That's so 2008. Consider human waste.

According to a Reuters story, an Atlanta-based energy firm called EnerTech will be the first in the nation to try to turn a profit from your, well, poop. The company just opened the country's "first commercial biosolids-to-energy facility in California's Inland Empire." The plant removes the liquid sewage sludge and the solid that's left is apparently interchangeable with coal, but without the drawbacks: "Biosolids are a renewable resource and do not add any net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere."

This isn't the first instance we've heard of human waste being re-purposed. A recent Wired Magazine story found an office building in Portland that sent flushed toilet water (after removing waste) to the plants in the atrium. There, it used the "soil and bacteria to filter out pathogens, essentially turning wastewater into nonpotable water," which is sterilized again and pumped back through the plumbing.

Still — it looks like one movement is leading to another (green) movement.