Progress on Poop to Power: City's First Natural Gas Fueling Station
March 8, 2018
Last year, the Bureau of Environmental Services launched an innovative venture to turn waste into clean energy while earning money for our ratepayers. We call it “poop to power.”
Today, we opened the City’s first natural gas fueling station at the Columbia Wastewater Treatment Plant, and introduced the City’s first natural gas vehicles.
Here’s how it works: every year, BES processes 28 billion gallons of wastewater. A natural byproduct of sewage treatment is methane, a potent greenhouse gas. For years, the City has been capturing a portion of this methane gas to produce electricity. The rest gets burned and released into the atmosphere.
When Poop to Power is fully up and running in 2019, we’ll capture almost all of the methane from the wastewater treatment plant and convert it to renewable natural gas.
That means that every year, we’ll replace over one million gallons of dirty diesel fuel with renewable natural gas, eliminate 21,000 tons of greenhouse gasses, and generate upwards of $3 million each year for our ratepayers. All at the same time.
That’s why we call it a triple-win!
Our future is green, and we’re proud that the City of Portland is leading the way.
Thanks to Paul Suto and all the staff with the Bureau of Environmental Services and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability for making this project a reality. And special thanks to Bill Edmonds and our key private-sector partner, NW Natural, who has worked with us to achieve this goal.
| Natural gas powered truck fueling up | Commissioner Fish with NW Natural's Bill Edmonds |
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