Bowdoin engineering program grad Keith Heyde ’11 is developing a prototype waste-to-energy system that would use boiler exhaust as food for energy-producing algae. It’s not as far-fetched as sounds.
A wind-powered propeller would draw exhaust gas up from the chimney and into a network of pipes filled with seawater and marine algae.
“Using photosynthesis, the algae will feed off the boiler exhaust bubbling through the water,” says Heyde. “What it shoots out is less polluted effluent.
“My idea is to hopefully create something that is very low-cost, relatively low-tech, that an environmentally conscious homeowner could work with.”
