Poop Power: The Energy Emitted from Excrement

Can energy really be produced from your pet's fecal matter? Well, that depends on the pet. More precisely, all waste can produce power, but different animals produce different types and amounts of power. For instance, dog feces produce differently than cow manure. The key factors in either case are methane and oil.

Many people are aware that animals like cows and pigs produce methane. This occurs through their fecal matter and when they release excess air such as belches and well, other means. This is a common occurrence for any herbivore. Methane is a clean source of energy that can be used for cooking, heating and powering equipment. For example, one pound of cow manure has enough energy in it to provide about half the energy needs of a small family for a day. Now take that and think a little bigger. Imagine a turkey farm or processing plant. Envision thousands of birds, each one contributing to the daily output of waste. One U.S. ton of that waste can produce 600 pounds of petroleum, 100 pounds of methane and 60 pounds of other minerals. This isn't a case of what the future could hold. There is a turkey plant in Carthage, MO that is doing this right now, every day, according to Butterball Turkey, owners of the plant.

Omnivores and carnivores, like dogs, cats and ferrets also produce methane, but in smaller amounts. Just in the U.S. alone dogs and cats account for about 20 billion pounds of waste per year. Keep in mind, this amount doesn't take into consideration other types of pets, such as birds or exotics. That's a lot of animal byproduct, but how does it become fuel?

Turning feces to fuel can involve one of three means. Those methods are thermal depolymerization process (TDP), thermochemical conversion (TCC) or thermal conversion process (TCP). TDP takes organic materials, like waste, and turns it into crude oil. By subjecting the material to intense heat and pressure, it turns hydrogen, oxygen and carbon into petroleum hydrocarbons, or oil. TCC takes organic matter, in this case animal waste, and places it in an oxygen-free environment and chemically reforms it. TCC also creates a crude oil. TCP uses heat, pressure and water to turn waste material into diesel fuel, fertilizers and chemicals, i.e. power. These processes even produce a small amount of water.

Think of it this way, every organic thing on earth is made up of carbon. Animals, including our pets, eat these items, in the form of food. Certain elements of this food are processed by the animal while the rest is passed as waste. Scientists have simply found away to recover the remaining carbon, along with other elements, from the waste and utilize it as fuel. The potential has always been there, but until recently it was either too costly to be worth the effort or produced too many undesirable by-products. Advances in science have now overcome many of those obstacles, allowing us to access a new source of power. Sheep, cow and pig farms have been turning their animal waste into fuel for years, now we've been able to expand this fuel source to include any animal, including the family pet.

In most cases, there aren't enough raw materials to produce a great deal of oil, so scientists will concentrate more on capturing methane from the feces. This is all thanks to methane digesters. Methane digesters are simply large tanks in which feces are dumped into. Bacteria in the tanks then feed on the feces and produces methane gas. That methane can then be used for such things as generating electricity and heating homes. The best part about these methane digesters is that almost any kind of food, plant or animal product can be used in them to create methane.

With most of the obstacles already overcome, the biggest problem now is getting the average pet owner to participate. Currently, almost all the fecal waste worldwide is simply thrown away or left on the ground. It then slowly releases methane gas into the atmosphere. Considering that free methane is probably the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, even worse than carbon dioxide, it's in everybody's best interest to pitch in. Harnessing this methane not only provides energy, but helps reduce global warming. Who knows, maybe someday in the near future, pet poop may become a commodity.