经济学人下载:四条腿朋友的代价 粪量变能源

United States: Pet waste A crap-shoot
美国：宠物粪便，从粪便里发出的新芽

The city ponders a plan to make power from puppy poop.
在宠物粪便中提取能源，该市构建着一幅如此蓝图。

Dogs, unlike people, are capable of pure love—at least according to Freud.
与人类不同，狗对主人的情感是纯洁无瑕的——至少弗洛伊德是这么说的。

As ever more Americans live alone, unconditional affection is in demand.
随着美国独居人数的增多，这种无条件的爱更是广受欢迎。

Pet ownership has risen for decades.
数十年来，越来越多的人开始饲养宠物。

More than a third of homes have at least one dog, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
根据美国兽医协会的调查，超过三分之一的家庭养了至少一只宠物狗。

But the popularity of four-legged friends has an icky cost: dogs squeeze out more than twice the waste of the average person, or around 275 pounds a year.
但四条腿朋友的盛行代价也是恼人的：狗年均排泄量比人均两倍还要多，大概一年在275磅左右。

With over 83m pooches roaming the country, that is a lot of poop.
超过8300万流浪狗游走在城市之间，这可是个不小的“粪”量。

Around 60% of the stuff gets scooped and trucked to landfills, where it releases methane, a greenhouse gas.
约60%的粪便会被挖走并运到释放温室气体甲烷的沼气填埋池。

The rest delivers surprises to pedestrians and can contaminate waterways, as carnivorous diets create pathogen-rich waste.
剩余的便便在惊到路人的同时还会污染河流，因为这种肉食性的饮食会制造出大量携带病菌的排泄物。

The problem is particularly bad in cities, where green spaces are few and lonely souls seeking puppy love plentiful.
这个问题在城市里极其严重，因为绿化少，而寻求宠物情感关爱的孤独身影却尤为多。

New York boasts over 600,000 hounds—one for every 14 people—generating over 100,000 tons of turd a year.
纽约市以拥有逾60万只宠物狗而自豪——平均每14个人就会饲养1只——它们一年将会制造10万多吨排泄物。

Some of it smudges unlucky stilettoes, but most is dutifully tossed into rubbish bins and hauled to landfills, at a cost of over $100 per ton.
一部分会弄脏不走运的穿高跟鞋的女士，而大部分则会被负责地扔进垃圾箱，运到沼气填埋池——大概1吨会花费一百多美元。

This is a missed opportunity, says Ron Gonen, the city's former recycling tsar.
“这简直就是错失良机。”前城市“回收沙皇”罗恩·戈南说道。

Now in the private sector, he is trying to launch “Sparky Power”, a programme to transform dog waste into clean energy in the city's dog parks.
如今，在私营企业的他正准备启动一项名为“生机能源”的项目，该项目旨在将城市宠物公园的粪便转化成清洁能源。

The idea is to fit parks with small anaerobic digesters.
这个想法的初衷是在公园里安装小型厌氧化粪器。

Dog owners would place their mongrels' mounds into the machine, which then converts poo to gas for powering lamps and other park equipment.
宠物主人把小狗们的粪便放入化粪器，该设备随即将粪便转化成气体燃料，用于为路灯和其他公园设备供电。

A year-long pilot would introduce digesters in three parks at a cost of around $100m.
一个为期一年的试点项目将花费近1亿美元将化粪器投入到三个公园中使用。

The parks department is pondering the proposal.
公园部门正在考虑此项提议。

Similar schemes in other cities have proved short-lived.
类似的方案在其他城市昙花一现。

An underground Energy Transformation Using Reactive Digestion (E-TURD) device created by Arizona State University students for a dog park in Gilbert, Arizona, in 2012 ultimately failed.
亚利桑那州立大学的一名学生为吉尔伯特镇的宠物公园设计了一套名为E-TURD的地下能源转换设备，该设备通过化学消化来实现能源转化。然而该项目最终于2012宣布失败。

“It's great to turn it into a biofuel, but first you gotta pick it up,” says Tom Boyd, an entrepreneur in Tennessee.
“把粪便转化成生物燃料的点子真是太棒了，但是首先你得把它们捡起来。”一个田纳西州的企业家汤姆·博伊德说道。

His company, Poo Prints, shames the owners of dogs who fail to clean up their messes by testing DNA in uncollected coils.
他的公司“便便印记”通过检验便便DNA来让那些不清理宠物散落的粪便的狗主人无地自容。

There are enough offenders to secure a new customer every two hours, he says.
他说，“罪犯”过多，以至于每两小时就能为他们带来一名新客户。

Most are landlords of smart apartment complexes, but in September the company launches its first district-wide programme—in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, naturally.
顾客大多数都是高档住宅小区的老板，九月，该公司将开启首次跨国项目——地点当然是在伦敦的巴金达格南区。