There are a lot of people who will tell you that alternate forms of sustainable power is a load of crap. The city of Portland seems to have taken that on as a challenge and now pooping = power.
Lucid Power is working with Portland to offer a new way of generating power. Using a new state of the art system, the city is now capturing energy from water flowing through the city’s pipelines. any time water goes through the pipes, including when you flush the toilet, the water rushes through small turbines in the pipes that send energy into a generator and off into the power grid.
“It’s pretty rare to find a new source of energy where there’s no environmental impact,” Gregg Semler told Fast Company. Semler is the chief executive officer of Lucid Energy, the Portland start-up behind the new system. “But this is inside a pipe, so no fish or endangered species are impacted. That’s what’s exciting.”
Right now, the extra power is going to help power the water company, cutting the costs of providing water to consumers. In Riverside California, they are using the new energy to power the streetlights at night.