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Posts Tagged ‘sewage’

Carbon Capture from Sewage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2026| 3 Comments »

Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Globe.
A New Haven, Connecticut, carbon-capture start-up is testing its concept at this sewage facility in Fall River, Massachusetts. Limestone gets mixed in with waste water at the bottom of the tank to draw out carbon.  

Nowadays most of us don’t think much about sewage. Out of sight, out of mind. But I regularly read novels that were written before indoor plumbing, and I often think about how awful those chamber pots and outhouses must have been. I feel grateful for the people who do think about sewage today.

Kate Selig reports at the Boston Globe about a New Haven, Connecticut, company turning sewage into a tool for fighting climate change.

“At the edge of a picturesque bay in this historic city,” she writes, “a deep waste water tank harbors an unlikely climate experiment.

“Near the base, a narrow tube spits out a milky stream that’s as thick as roux. The liquid, a mix of treated waste water and a naturally occurring mineral, is swirled in with the sewage. The combination kick-starts chemical reactions that pull carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives climate change, into a harmless bicarbonate ion.

“CREW Carbon, a startup founded in New Haven, is betting that this simple combination could turn dirty water into a powerful climate solution. It has partnered with waste water treatment plants along the East Coast, including the facility in Fall River, to put this approach into action. As a bonus, municipalities often find that limestone is a cheaper and more effective way to treat waste water than conventional methods. …

” ‘We don’t need massive new infrastructure or subsidies,’ said Joachim Katchinoff, the company’s cofounder and CEO. ‘And because our process delivers real operational and cost benefits, it creates a win-win for utilities and for the planet.’ The company grew out of research at Yale and was founded in 2022 by Katchinoff and Noah Planavsky, a geochemist and Yale professor. …

“When the water flows out of the plant, the company says, the dissolved ions eventually make their way to the ocean, where they can be stored for thousands of years. Katchinoff estimated that a single treatment plant can remove thousands to tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide annually. The startup sells carbon removal credits, a way for companies to pay to offset their climate pollution. CREW Carbon is one of the first companies to deliver credits in New England.

“The municipalities benefit as well. Some waste water treatment plants see cost savings and increased safety for workers by using limestone instead of chemicals for controlling pH. The limestone also can yield cleaner water flowing out of the plant. And in some cases, CREW Carbon is sharing revenue with the treatment facility from the carbon credits it sells. …

“The company’s first partnership was with the local utility in New Haven. Since then, it has grown to have six full-scale projects, most located on the East Coast. It delivered its first carbon credits in the spring, making it the first company in the world to have done so using waste water alkalinity enhancement, as the method is known. Alkalinity is a measure of the water’s ability to neutralize acids.

“In the coming years, the startup has committed to delivering about 70,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal, the equivalent of taking over 16,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year, to a coalition of companies that includes Alphabet and McKinsey. …

“On a recent day, Jonathan Mongie, a project manager for Inframark, which operates the Fall River plant, leaned over a tank where waste water treated with limestone was being disinfected.

“ ‘I can see deeper than we’ve ever seen before,’ he said, observing the clarity of the water. The limestone increased the amount of solid particles in the waste water separated out using gravity. The plant was already meeting stringent discharge standards, Mongie said, but the limestone has improved the cleanliness of the water flowing into the bay. …

“Planavsky, the Yale professor, said CREW Carbon’s approach is not a silver bullet for the climate crisis. Instead, he said, it could be part of a future integrated approach where many industries each do their relatively small part. (Though Planavsky is a cofounder, he does not receive any money from the company.)

“Some scientific questions remain about waste water alkalinity enhancement, especially what happens after the water leaves the treatment plant. Tyler Kukla, a research scientist at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that analyzes climate solutions, said the chemical reactions that occur within the waste water plant are well understood and take place within a closed system, making them easier to monitor. However, he said, it is less clear what happens to the carbon as it travels out to the ocean.

” ‘This is a work in progress,’ he said. ‘We can make measurements that we feel very confident about in many cases, but there is still a part of the system that is a little bit fuzzy to us.’ “

More at the Globe, here.

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Chicago River Restored

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 14, 2025| 5 Comments »

Photo: Linda Barrett.
The Chicago River, once badly polluted, has been cleaned up. Above, 265 swimmers participated in a public swim this year.

When humans make up their minds to do something, miracles can happen. Remember the river that caught fire and led to the Clean Water Act? Today’s article points to a more recent river success.

The environmental radio show Living on Earth reports that “on September 21st, hundreds of people leapt into the Chicago River for the first public swimming event since 1927.” Here’s an interview between Friends of the Chicago River Executive Director Margaret Frisbie and Aynsley O’Neill of Living on Earth. (I edited out the verbal pauses.)

Aynsley O’Neill
“This public swimming event was a fundraiser, but its impact actually goes even further than that. What does it mean to you to have public swimming in the Chicago River for the first time in nearly 100 years?

Margaret Frisbie
” ‘I was a magical day that’s hard to describe, seeing hundreds of people in the water swimming so joyfully, really represented all the work that Friends of the Chicago River and so many organizations and agencies have done to improve the health of the river, not only for people, but for wildlife too. The morning of the swim, people just were beyond thrilled. People were watching from the bridges. They were watching from the Riverwalk. … For people who’ve lived here a long time, I think it’s a game-changer. Seeing people in the water makes you believe that it’s possible. …

“We had Olympic athletes. We had … Becca Mann, who’s an Olympic athlete who swims 10Ks in open water, which is really impressive and amazing. She got out and she was just beside herself, and she said, I cannot wait to come back to Chicago and do this again. …

O’Neill
“Give us a sense of the difference between maybe now and maybe 50 years ago in terms of sewage spills into the river.

Frisbie
“When friends of the Chicago River was founded in 1979, on average, there was sewage in the river every three days. Fast Forward 46 years, and basically there’s never sewage in the river ever. …

“The one thing that’s always fun for us to talk about at Friends of the Chicago River is how alive the river is and how different it is. .. We’re seeing our aquatic animal life going up, and that’s because of the work of Friends of the Chicago River, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, the forest preserves at Cook County and so many partners. In the 1970s, when friends was founded, there were less than 10 species of fish in the river system. Now there’s nearly 80, and we have beavers and muskrats and turtles, and we’re seeing the return of river otters, who are really an excellent sign of river health, because they depend on clean water to keep their coats clean and their bodies healthy, and then they’re also dependent upon mussels and fish and other aquatic and macro invertebrates to eat. …

O’Neill
“For those who are unfamiliar, how did we get here? …

Frisbie
“Over the last 50 years, Friends of the Chicago River has been chipping away at both the actual water quality through advocating for cleaning up the river system, but also by using the Clean Water Act and building support for a river that was swimmable. And so the water quality has changed since 1979 when we were founded, bit by bit, you know, using the rules of the Clean Water Act and partnering with government agencies like the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District that dug a huge tunnel and reservoir system that’s virtually eliminated sewage from the river system, and then also disinfecting sewage affluent that goes to the river, and just also creating public access so people can get down to and in the water.

O’Neill
“How much of this was from a government level versus a volunteer level? How did that work?

Frisbie
“[It] really it takes both. The Tunnel and Reservoir Plan is 110 miles of tunnel, three enormous reservoirs that can store 17 billion gallons of sewage and storm water and industrial waste. However, it’s not just about building it; it’s having support for that system and also making sure that the government agencies who are working on it are on task, and making sure that they’re getting the work done. … Advocates encouraged and pushed a long way. So while we partner with this agency, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, on many, many programs, we also were engaged with forcing a permit that included an enforceable deadline of 2029 so they have to be done and wrap up the project and not say, hey, we ran out of money, we just can’t finish it yet. …

O’Neill
“What would you consider the biggest challenge during this process of cleaning up the Chicago River?

Frisbie
“People got used to the river systems being a place where sewage and waste could go, as opposed to we’re on the shores of Lake Michigan, which everyone fights for. …

“The river comes to us. It flows through communities. It’s a community connector, and it provides access to nature for people who live in an urban area. We also know that with the impact of the climate crisis, heat is the number one killer, and it is incumbent upon all of us to take seriously the fact that people need public open space where they can go and they can get away from the heat. … We know that nature actually improves public health, and, you know, mental wellness. So it plays so many, many, many roles. And then also we have major biodiversity loss, and cities can play a role in protecting biodiversity. … We are getting massive amounts of migratory animals, birds, bats, insects, and they depend on natural areas, and so it’s really important for that too. …

O’Neill
“For many of us, we might hear about the Chicago River once a year, St. Patrick’s Day, when it gets dyed green. What do you think about this tradition? …

Frisbie
“At Friends of the Chicago River, we think that we have outgrown that tradition. It’s really a fun morning. It builds community. … But we think a river that’s alive with wildlife really needs to be treated like a natural resource.”

More at Living on Earth, here.

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Manhole Cover Greeting Cards

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2016| 4 Comments »

Photo: Tokyo Five, via Gwarlingo

Back in the early days of this blog (nearly five years ago), I posted about the imaginative Japanese manhole covers that I had seen at the Gwarlingo website. Now Asakiyume has clued me in to collectable cards made from the designs.

The Japan Times has the story. “The cards will be distributed for free to anyone who wants one at sewage plants and other facilities. Pictures of the manholes will be on one side of the cards, which are roughly business card size, while explanations about their designs will feature on the reverse side.

“The manhole designs differ from area to area, and often feature flowers and animals used as symbols in respective communities, or yuru kyara (local mascots). …

“The manhole cover designs are decided after asking the public for ideas, or through a competition among manufacturers of manhole covers. [Hideto Yamada of the GKP, a group including officials from local governments and the infrastructure ministry’s sewage management department] said he hoped the cards will help lift public interest in the sewage system.”

An even better way, I think, would be create greeting cards and postcards that could be sold widely and sent around the world.

More at the Japan Times, here.

Photo: Remo Camerota, via Gwarlingo
A design for a new drain cover.

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Water Treatment Idea: Dispersed Facilities

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Some Massachusetts river enthusiasts were concerned about the amount of rainwater runoff that goes into the big sewage-treatment plant on Boston’s Deer Island and then out to sea. So they came up with a different concept.

Jon Chesto reports at the Boston Globe, “The massive Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant was once hailed as an environmental victory, one that would revive a then-defiled Boston Harbor while processing sewage for more than 40 cities and towns. But roughly 15 years after the plant’s completion, one local group still isn’t ready to celebrate.

“The Charles River Watershed Association has instead proposed an unusual alternative to the hulking plant: smaller, neighborhood treatment centers that would convert waste water and discarded food into energy. That energy would then be sold to help defray the cost of the projects.

“The nonprofit group’s primary aim in developing the concept was to limit the vast amounts of rainwater and ground water that get sucked into sewer pipes to be washed out to sea via Deer Island, a phenomenon that is harming the Charles River by decreasing its water volume. …

“These plants would first need to attract customers. Some of their business would come from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which would redirect some of its waste water to the facilities to be processed. More income would come from a food processing business that would rely on large customers such as colleges, hospitals, and big restaurants to ship discarded food to the facilities.

“Like the waste-water residue, the food trash can be placed in an anaerobic digester system that breaks down the organic material and converts it to methane gas to generate electricity. That power could reduce a facility’s operating costs and be sold into the region’s grid. The remnants could be converted into fertilizers.

“ ‘We’re throwing away a lot of potential revenue as if it were waste, as if it were a bad thing,’ [Charles River Watershed executive director Bob] Zimmerman said. ‘It’s only waste water if you waste it.’ ”

More here.

Infographic: David Butler/Globe Staff
Source: Charles River Watershed Association

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Converting Sewage to Energy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

Conrad Wilson recently posted an intriguing story at National Public Radio. It’s about a a practical approach to sustainability: converting sewage to energy.

“It turns out,” writes Wilson, “a sewer — the place where a city’s hot showers, dishwashing water and organic matter end up — is a pretty warm place. That heat can generate energy — meaning a city’s sewer system can hold tremendous potential for heating and cooling.

“It’s just that unexpected energy source that Brainerd [Minn.] hopes to exploit.

“Scott Sjolund, technology supervisor for Brainerd Public Utilities, is standing on the corner of 6th Avenue and College Drive in Brainerd, as sewage rushes unseen through underground pipes.

” ‘Everybody heats water up … and all that gets drained down the sewer, and that’s potential energy that could be extracted. That’s part of the equation,’ Sjolund says.

” ‘Actually extracting it in an economical fashion,’ Sjolund says, is the equation’s critical second part.

“The idea for this project comes from Brainerd-based company Hidden Fuels. In 2009, the business partnered with the city and the school district and received a $45,000 grant from the federal stimulus package.

“Hidden Fuels’ Peter Nelson says the first phase of the project involved installing sensors in the city’s sewers. For more than a year, the company and the city measured the temperature and amount of sewage running through the system to create a thermal energy map.

” ‘It shows that there’s a significant amount of energy — literally enough to heat hundreds of homes — within the streets of the city of Brainerd,’ Nelson says.

“Earl Wolleat, director for buildings and grounds with the Brainerd School District, says there’s enough energy running in just one of the sewer pipes to heat the entire high school. That could save tens of thousands of dollars every winter.”

Read more.

Public Utilities’ Scott Sjolund at a sewer site. Photograph: Conrad Wilson

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