Dear BEST'ers,

It came to my attention yesterday that many BEST members may not 
have realized that we are able to post ratings on the Florida 
House of Representatives "100 Ideas" page. It is also possible to 
post comments on the ideas. I strongly encourage BEST members to 
visit the site, rate ideas that have relevance for development of 
bioenergy and sustainable technologies, and post comments on 
issues that you have knowledge and interest.

Dr. Humphrey's posting on the site regarding conversion of 
traditional wastewater plants into methane generating anaerobic 
digesters is copied below.

Here's the site: http://www.100ideas.org/ideas.php

Jason





Waste-to-Energy from Municipal Sewage


"Convene a task force of agency staff and corporate/university 
scientists and engineers to develop a proposal for replacing 
municipal sewage treatment plants with anaerobic digesters that 
convert sewage to methane to fire electricity-generation plants. 
There is no technological constraint to doing so, only legal, 
regulatory, and capital constraints. This new approach, done at 
large scale, would transform huge sources of pollution to huge 
sources of energy to fuel our economy. The technology is beginning 
to be applied to dairy farms and livestock feedlots in Florida 
(see for example 
http://rgp.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v11n2/extract3.html), but 
the much bigger problem/opportunity is the manure of human 
municipalities."
--------------------------------
Thinking the opportunity too good to pass up, I recently posted 
this idea on the 100 Ideas webpage sponsored by the Florida House 
of Representatives, <http://www.100ideas.org/ideas.php> 
http://www.100ideas.org/ideas.php  This "ideafest" activity is a 
national movement that is backed by the incoming Speaker of the 
Florida House.


Dr. Stephen R. Humphrey, Director of Academic Programs, School of 
Natural Resources and Environment, Box 116455, 103 Black Hall, 
University of Florida Gainesville, FL  32611-6455  USA Tel. 
352-392-9230, Fax 352-392-9748  <http://snre.ufl.edu/> 
http://snre.ufl.edu




--
Jason Evans
Ph.D. Candidate, Interdisciplinary Ecology
School of Natural Resources and the Environment
University of Florida
(352) 466-4549 - home office
(352) 328-1199 - cell