Dog Poop Powers Lamp in Cambridge

[CalMeacham]

That’s a headline in today’s Boston Herald:

Dog poop is lighting a lantern at a Cambridge dog park as part of a monthslong project that its creator, artist Matthew Mazzotta, hopes will get people thinking about not wasting waste.

The “Park Spark” poop converter is actually two steel, 500-gallon oil tanks painted a golden yellow, connected by diagonal black piping and attached to an old gaslight-style street lantern at the Pacific Street Park.

After the dogs do their business, signs on the tanks instruct owners to use biodegradable bags supplied on site to pick up the poop and deposit it into the left tank. People then turn a wheel to stir its insides, which contain waste and water. Microbes in the waste give off methane, an odorless gas that is fed through the tanks to the lamp and burned off. The park is small but has proven busy enough to ensure a steady supply of fuel.

It’s a great idea, but, knowing Cambridge, I think it’s only a matter of time before someone throws something inappropriate in there that will ruin the methane producer.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

There are nearby institutions that have been entirely fueled by shit for decades…

[lieu]

I guess it beats waiting by the dog’s ass with a Zippo.

[Floater]

http://parksparkproject.com/home.html

Welcome to the
Park Spark project!

Anywhere people are walking dogs can be a source of heat and light by introducing a Methane Digester into the equation. As long as people are walking dogs and throwing away dog poo, a flame can burn.

[tdn]

Microbes in the waste give off methane, an odorless gas

SURE it’s odorless.

[CalMeacham]

SURE it’s odorless.

Well, technically methane is odorless. but any methane made by any but antiseptic processes is inevitably going to have lots of aromatic* compounds mixed in with it. Especially, in this case, considering the source

*“Aromatic” has a technical sense as well as the colloquial one: Aromatic compound - Wikipedia . I mean both senses.

[ralph124c]

I’ll bet this thing is in violation of all kinds of laws-health codes and EPA regulations. For instance, what do they do when this thing needs to be cleaned out? Or if they spill some of the contents.
Of course, this is Cambridge…the moonbat capital.

[cochrane]

I’m just waiting until I can power my car with dog poop. I’ll never run out of fuel!

[kdeus]

My yard should glow like the aurora borealis.

[Tethered_Kite]

Now I know what they mean by “light pollution.”