KIC InnoEnergy: Green Energy from Farmyard Manure and Human Waste?

Using farmyard manure and human waste as an energy source for fuel or as a supplement to wind and solar energy and at the same time as a fertiliser in agriculture may sound like science fiction, but DeBugger aims to do just that.

The DeBugger project was launched in 2013 and is being carried out by Outotec Sweden and Germany as well as the University of Stuttgart. They are working on how the energy and nutrients extracted from currently unused human and animal biomass can best be put to purpose, while recycling the plant nutrients, nitrogen and phosphates for controlled fertilisation in agriculture. Science fiction? By the end of 2015 it may have become reality as by then DeBugger plans to have completed an extensive pilot project in Sweden. The future may be far closer than we think!

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The difficulties of using human and animal biowaste

“I've worked in the fields
of nutrient recycling and recovery of critical substances in the human and animal nutrient chain for over a decade,” explains project manager, Ludwig Hermann. Working for Outotec, he started developing DeBugger (Demonstration of efficient Biomass Use
for Generation of Green Energy and Recovery of nutrients) in 2012. Human and animal biowaste derived from urban sewer systems and agricultural waste is usually inefficiently utilised. The reason for this is that biomass waste is more than 90 per cent water and so its energy is barely useable.

Alternatively, spreading excessive amounts of manure on fields, results in overfertilisation of soils and eutrophication (over-nutrition) of water. The direct consequence of elevated phosphate and nitrogen concentrations in inland and coastal waters is algal blooms.

You can read more about the DeBugger project by downloading the flyer linked below.