No, the title does not refer to Congress, it is meant to be taken literally: It is about the District of Columbia's sewage treatment plant that produces renewable energy by treating its biosolids with a new hydrolysis technology imported from Norway.
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (D.C. Water), "which also treats sewage from much of the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs, recently became the first utility in North America to use a Norwegian thermal hydrolysis system to convert the sludge left over from treated sewage into electricity," writes Katherine Shaver for The Washington Post.
In a Washington Post article last year on the process, Ashley Halsey III wrote that "D.C. Water is the (local) electricity company’s No. 1 customer. By converting poop to power, the water company will cut its Pepco bill by about one third and reduce by half the cost of trucking treated waste elsewhere." The electricity generation from the biomethane produced through anaerobic digesters amounts to 13 megawatts of power.
Anaerobic digestion is not what's new here—it's the "'pressure cooker' technology that can fit such a system in the relatively tight confines of an urban treatment plant," writes Shaver. D.C. Water officials say it’s the largest of its kind in the world. Click here to view the graphic.
“It’s a huge deal on so many fronts,” D.C. Water General Manager George S. Hawkins said after Wednesday’s [Oct. 7] official unveiling of the system. “It’s a public utility leading the world in innovation and technology. We have private and public water companies coming from all over the world to see this.”
From the 2014 article:
“It could be a game changer for energy,” said George Hawkins, an environmentalist who became general manager of D.C. Water. “If we could turn every enriched-water facility in the United States into a power plant, it would become one of the largest sectors of clean energy that, at the moment, is relatively untapped.”
In addition to producing biomethane for electricity generation, the plant produces a "Class A compost-like substance (that) could show up in the next year or so on the shelves of Home Depot as a soil nutrient for home gardens, officials said," adds Shaver.
When you consider the "toilet-to-tap" wastewater recycling process out west, one is left with the recognition that sewage treatment centers may be one of America's last unexploited resources, although this exploitation is environmentally sustainable. Not tapping it would be a shame.
Correspondent's note: See the Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center to distinguish renewable natural gas from biogas.
Hat tip: Kenyon Karl, Sierra Club
FULL STORY: D.C. Water begins harnessing electricity from every flush
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.