Sunday, July 20, 2008

More about poop (sorry if this is gross)

I just learned that people are willing to pay 12.95 per week to have someone come to their house and pick up their dog's poop. Wow.

This has implications for my bio reactor plan, which I wrote about previously.
  1. I could run such a business to collect material for my plan
  2. I could contact existing businesses and collect the poop from them, thus saving their disposal costs and providing me with fuel
What still remains for this business idea is to do analyze the costs and smell producing characteristics of constructing a bio reactor and harnessing the methane for electricity. Then I need to do a pay-off analysis to see when any costs would start paying for themselves.

Any feedback from you?

more links:
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
http://biorealis.com/wwwroot/digester_revised.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_workplace/farms_ranches/index.cfm/mytopic=30004

"A biodigester usually requires manure from more than 150 large animals to cost effectively generate electricity." that means I need like 300 dogs pooping like crazy. ewww.

2 comments:

Feeble said...

Livestock waste has been harnessed for producing methane which is used for powering lights and for heat.

I guess collecting poop from dogs may not be sustainable as the cost of getting the poop to the power generation facility may cost more than the power generated!

A centralized herd of animals is better!

Greg said...

Feeble, right, it might not be worth it. However if some other person or company has done the work of collecting the dog excretions, it would be a one stop trip to go pick it up.

Is there a waste management expert out there who can help us figure this out?