[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW6-1SlvtN4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

When you consider that New York City disposes of more water as waste than nearly 70% of the countries in Africa (accounting for over 340 million people) consume, you would hope that they’re doing something useful with it. And they have been. With some of it.

It turns out that they’ve been using about half of the methane generated by the city’s 14 sewage plants to produce around 20% of the energy used to power them.

But what about the rest of it? Well, they’re working on that, too. Through a partnership with National Grid, the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Brooklyn – the city’s largest – should soon be adding enough methane to the city’s natural gas supplies to heat 2,500 homes.

Sure, there’s another 13 plants, and certainly, there are a lot of other useful things you can do with sewage, but it’s a start. Who knows, with all that poop, one day they may have a power supply as well.

Via Inventor Spot