I hope this is going to be a steam reaction process with slurry from wastewater treatment.
This also got me thinking about our own energy from waste plant here in Jersey. We could relocate our waste treatment to La Collette as planned and modify the waste treatment plant to produce Hydrogen.
In the meantime we had our French Twinning guests from Agon-Coutainville for two days, and the kindly brought us some Whelks. I love Whelks. I also like speaking French for a couple of days to keep my French conversational skills excercised. (Enough to get by).
We were discussing all sorts of things about Agon-Coutainville. Tourism, lack of industry, and that the Migrants are not allowed to work, and the Oyster and Whelk farmers have no labour.
I have been noticing over the years that Whelks in particular seem to have thicker denser shells. On a bit of superficial research this morning I found out that as the Seas act as a carbon sink, there is evidence that some crustacians are growing denser shells, while others like oysters are becoming softer. So I was right, Whelk shells are denser than they used to be.
I also notice that my garden snails when I evict them, seem to have lighter shells. Not so dense, and they break easily. More evidence of elevated CO2.
Anyway I happened to say to our french guests that Whelk shells would probably be quite good crushed and used in the garden, which would be an added use, and sellable product from the whelks. I am pretty sure oyster shells are used for reseeding oyster beds. So a quick google, and yes the Whelks work as a slow release fertiliser , and are considered decorative.
I was also thinking that they are mostly calcium, although I am not sure what kind of quantities farmed whelks could produce. I suppose it's possible to farm whelks pretty much the same way as land snails. The other good thing about whelk fishing is that they go to the nets, so the fishing of them doesn't damage the sea bed.
Both are very tasty if cooked well, and not at all tough and rubbery. Whelks and Snails are a great delicacy to some people. I would also think Whelk meat could be used as a kind of substitute 'crabstick' type food.
That leaves the shells, which are basicly a renewable source of Calcium which can be used to scrub Hydrochlorines, and other nasty gasses. I assume these can then be further processed to other uses.
I wonder how well treated Coffee grounds would be as Carbon filters. Coffee grounds contain a lot of anti-oxidents, so I suppose they could be processed for their health benifits, then the processed residue modified to act as scrubbers for sulpher. I was just wondering if a totally organic and renewable compound could be made from Whelk shells and coffee grounds. It would deoderize and capture sulpher as well I suppose.
Provided there were no heavy metals and contaminents left in the final Whelk/Coffee waste it could be mixed with the processed sludge from the refining. I wonder if the sludge could be processed in such a way as to add to anaerobically produced manure and turned into an ideal growing medium.
The other thing this final waste product might be good for is very quick cement. I was thinking about the mortar aggregate the Romans made for their harbours. It seems to have more durability than modern cement for marine use such as tidal bays for hydroelectric.
I suppose I do have pretty random ideas. But if we put our minds to it we have all the solutions to every problem we face in the future.
The Elegance of the new Russian reactor is that it reprocesses spent fuel. It will also have the ability to use up all the nuclear waste, and process all the warheads. For all that the West slates Russia, they are putting their best developments in technology to use in designing solutions.
They are also very smart in commissioning Ice breakers for the Arctic route to keep it open all year round. What a geopolitical solution that is.