Our current primary source of energy is actually really old biomass from ancient swamps that had dense foilage. I am talking of course about oil.
But why drill for oil? It is costly, dangerous, and has the potential to cause huge spills like the recent one in... just name a place they happen frequently. Is oil carbon neutral, of course not. Is it cheap, well maybe in dollars, but overall it is killing us. So why do we continue to use oil, and coal, dirty sources of fuel that pollute our air, and water. We cannot get rid of this pollution. The only effective way to suck up Co2 is to contain it within plants, and I don’t mean the nuclear kind.
All green plants use Co2 and contain it as part of their biomass. Animals, such as human beings, dogs, cats, etcetera also contain carbon in our bodies. However, a lot of this fuel cannot be used by our bodies, and so we excrete it in the form of exhalation, and excretion of urine and fecal matter.
Poop is everywhere. We already have sewage plants for treatment of waste, why not add a little conversion into electricity? Finally, and at long last a renewable and clean energy source. Why has it taken us so long to discover it? Poop works. In total environmental impact something we think of as dirty is actually a cleaner form of energy than solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, and fracking (natural gas extraction from deep underground), none of which are truly carbon neutral. We know about the dangers of fracking, drilling for oil, burning and mining coal, but we don't talk much about the total environmental cost of things... a lot b/c down the line it gets very complex. Solar and Wind are efficient, but not carbon neutral. Wind is generally difficult, mostly because wind is hard to calculate and areas with the correct amount of wind are very few.
Solar is fairly available as the sun is everywhere... all our energy comes from the sun anyway... but the way we are able to harness that energy is still not as efficient as it would need to be to be carbon neutral, and a lot of it has to do with storing energy. It is hard to store electricity, and batteries are not good for the environment. Solar panels also require mining to produce.
Nuclear power is not carbon neutral yet. It could be if we went all nuclear, but... where would we put all those horrible, toxic chemicals? ICK... more horrible pollution.
What about hydroelectric? That seems clean... but it isn't good for the environment either. There are few places to put big dams, like the Hoover Dam... and if you put up such a dam it has huge consequences for the plant and animal life in the area that could on a large scale be totally detrimental to other species, and humans of course.
So how can poop save us from ecological ruin without sending back to the dark ages... not the literal dark ages, but the ages pre-electricity, etcetera.
Well it's simple, actually, we already have infrastructure we can modify to create massive amounts of biogas and hydroelectric fuel from sewage. We could probably also add in other waste, if properly managed, such as the stuff in your green garbage can, and waste from your precious pooch, or cat, and animal waste products from farming. Big companies like Google, Microsoft, and L’Oreal are already investing in this new technology. So let’s take a trip back to our childhood and remember that everybody poops, and that poop can be used to cleanly power our computers, heat our homes, and get us to all the places we want to go without choking our planet with Co2 emissions, without dangerous and limiting mining, without the horrifying dangers of nuclear plants, and without killing our rivers. We could fairly easily convert sewers to generate hydroelectric power on its way to being treated, and refined into biofuels without adding more pollution to our environment. So I ask you... why do you think people are resisting this? Is it because they are ignorant about it? Is it because they still think of poop as being dirty? You tell me.
