The poop-to-energy bandwagon has scored its highest-profile jumper to date.

A Columbia researcher’s quest to develop the technological means to “transform fecal sludge” into fuel—a process he hopes will form the basis for the ‘Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility’ in Africa—won a $1.5 million grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Here’s how the Columbia press shop describes Kartik Chandran‘s project:

Chandran and his team aim to develop a bioprocess technology to convert the organic compounds present in fecal sludge to biodiesel and methane, two potent sources of energy, and thus convert a waste-processing facility into a biorefinery. The biorefinery will not only be an economical source of fuel, but, by minimizing discharge of fecal sludge into local water bodies, it will also contribute to improved human health and sanitation.

Chandran believes the technology, fully-developed, could be the linchpin in a “social enterprise business model” that could be implemented in developing economies all over the world. But he had me at “transform fecal sludge.”

All of this reminds me that earlier this year researchers in England found that the amount of energy we thought was contained in our sewage—somewhere between 70 and 140 gigawatts—was in fact a ‘substantial underestimation.’ Samples taken from domestic sewage plants contained up to 20% more energy per liter than previous estimates, which were based on a flawed measuring methodology. I wrote about it for Scientific American. Read all about it.

-- Mike Orcutt