FYI

Are Pizza Crusts the Next Big Thing In Green Energy?

One of the many slop-filled
One of the many slop-filled “digesters” that lives under a freeway in Oakland. Photo: Oakland North

Those hippies in San Francisco are at it again: first with the bio-diesel, and now with a pilot program to turn kitchen waste (pizza crusts, spent limes, rotting fruits and vegetables) into electricity. It’s the first program of its kind in the country, and the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is looking to receive up to 200 tons of restaurant refuse per day by next spring, which it converts into energy sort of by composting it and collecting the methane gas that’s produced. “Strangely, it smells … good,” writes Oakland North. “The aroma of soil, mint and citrus wafts from the truck. Not the types of scents you typically associate with a sewage plant.” So now, if all goes according to the hippies’ plans, your cars will smell like french fries and your sewage treatment plants will smell like mojitos.

EBMUD turns food scraps into electricity [Oakland North]

Are Pizza Crusts the Next Big Thing In Green Energy?