National Geographic Explorer Culhane Shows Garbage-Energy Isn't Science Fiction
By Marianne Lavelle, The Energy Collective.
Year after year, Culhane has been one of the most riveting storytellers of the extended Explorer family that National Geographic Society brings together at its Washington, D.C. headquarters each June. You’ll become a believer if you spend time listening to T.H. extol the little-known virtues of in-sink garbage disposals, or show photos of renewable energy outposts he’s catalogued in Nepal.
One of Culhane’s passions has been making methane fuel from garbage and other waste through the process of anaerobic digestion. No, you don’t need fusion as Doc Brown used in the Back to the Futuremovies. All you need is the right set-up with well-understood technology, and the kind of ubiquitous micro-organisms that have been among the earliest living “bugs” on Earth.