Inhabitat

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Ha! This is ridiculously brilliant and ridiculously ridiculous at the same time. I love it.

They should do the same thing for the water that goes down your drain in the sinks and shower.

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Most toilets rely on gravity to make them function. Some rely on pumps or pressure vessels.

ALL TOILTS REQUIRE A FREE FLOWING WASTE DRAIN. Put any obstruction in thew waste line, and your problems will begin.

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Rob is right - all municipal sewers are graded to just the right amount to keep the semi solids moving, any obstruction would take you rapidly back to the middle ages!

This is very reminiscent of the bizarre idea that you can generate useful power from a collection of wind turbines on the body of an electric car - of course common sense tells us that the inefficiency of the windmill and the extra turbulence will result in less than half the extra energy needed to push such a car though the air being recovered. The only gain would be if the wind is behind you and faster than you wish to travel when a sail would be far more efficient [and lighter] if somewhat questionable from a road safety point of view.

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At first, I thought it would be stupid to implement this and it would add stress to the municipal water system. But since the water is brought to the tank above the toilet regardless if this turbine is installed or not, it’s true there’s some wasted energy when it’s released down the drain.

However, I totally agree with the comments about the drain obstruction this device would create. It might be a better idea to use it on the shower drain (gray water for the shower vs brown water for the toilet).

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Unless this is used on a natural source like your down spout it is energy negative.

The city pumps water up into the water tower in order to pressurize the system. By putting this into a pipe you’re requiring higher pressure which will require more energy from the tower pumps. There is no free energy. It’s elementary physics.

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[…] Wasted Energy We Flush Away… March 5, 2008 Posted by taoist in Energy. trackback With pooptricity! The real question is how quickly the device pays for itself in energy savings. It doesn’t […]

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This seems like a really stupid way to steal pennies from your local government coffers. I mean, how does the water get to your house in the first place? Pumps powered by either electric or conventional engines pressurize the water and push it around. That isn’t green. That isn’t innovative.

You might consider doing this if the government starts installing power-generating speed bumps in your area that steal some pennies worth of electricity from you every time you drive over them.

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Rather than trying to reclaim energy from your toilet, you might consider tuning the fill level in your toilet to use less water. Using less water means using less energy to clean and deliver the water. You’ll spend less on your water bill that way than you would gain by installing one of these on a toilet.

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[…] Inhabitat] Related Posts Wave power to be put to use in California It looks like California could be getting […]

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The arguments that this thing will cause the public sewage system problems are bogus. As to the portion of the system on your property, it will depend on the velocity of the black water to prevent solids from building up in the device.
At a first glance, I can’t see enough savings to pay for the unit , installation and maintenance. Individually, we don’t have enough potential energy given the mass that we would produce.

I could see it working on a high rise building or one that uses a process with enough water discharge above the level of the public sewer.

One could generate far more energy by never walking down stairs; instead of walking down stairs, one would have a rope attached to a sheave, which is attached to an armature, which would act as brake to slow descent when one would ride down the rope to lower levels. And no one can call this a shitty proposal.

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[…] Inhabitat » POOPTRICITY: Want Electricity? Flush Your Turbine Toilet! - […]

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Many municipal water systems must install pressure regulators to moderate their water pressure to keep from damaging distribution piping (in hilly areas, anyway, like mine is). And many households must install pressure regulators for the same reason. So, one could perhaps install something like this, damp down excessive pressure and capture energy in the process. And neither installation would have any effect on sewer flow.