This Idea is total BullSh**

those kinds of facilities are actually starting to pop up all over wisconsin- but they require a heavy initial investment which is difficult for the average small farmer to come up with. the larger corporations, though, really should consider it.

 

Poor people in India have been doing something similar for a long time, using hte gas for all their heating and cooking needs. THey jsut build a dome shaped structure about 10 feet across. SOme simple plumbing, and it's done.

No high startup costs. Just some inginuity.

 

I would guess that dog poo is not as good, much less organic matter and more meat based food. Plus I understand that much of what comes out of the farm animal is not fully digested.



By the way, your Topic line, the clicking on the link gave me quite a chuckle. I thought "you got me!"

 

Back in the 70's the people from Mother Earth News had an old pickup converted to run off methane from manure. They built the digester from a 30 gal drum, collected and compressed the methane, then ran the pickup with the gas.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ Apr 15 2006, 09:31 AM) [snapback]240182[/snapback]</div>

The majority of poor people in India use the poop itself for fuel and heating (and as a building material in some cases). It's the better off farming communities that have a methane digester. Everywhere one goes in India, one will see large (about 12" diameter) patties drying out or stacked. Women take the ubiquitous cow patties and shape them and set them out to dry. The horrendous smog in big Indian cities is not only from vehicles and electric plants, it's from burning dung.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Apr 15 2006, 08:59 AM) [snapback]240163[/snapback]</div>

On dairy farms you need about 500 head of cattle to make it financially worthwhile. Vermont has a "poo-power" program where utility customers can purchase electricity generated from digesters such as these. I think it's a pretty popular thing there.

Here in CO there are a few. There's a large pig farm out east that uses one and a few entrepenuers here in the Denver area have gotten funding to build a couple. They run on dairy waste, poo, and slops from an ice cream factory.

New Belgium Brewing, up in Fort Collins, CO (and makers of Fat Tire) uses a digester powered by Brewer's yeast. They're saving a ton of money, not so much becasue of the electricity savings (the digester supplies about 65% of their power needs) but because their water treatment costs have plummeted. Appearently the city of Fort Collins was charging them a lot of money to treat the waste water.

 

Wow, that would be cool if they found a way to run cars off of manure.. The down side would be in rush hour traffic it would smell like every one was farting...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Apr 15 2006, 03:01 PM) [snapback]240244[/snapback]</div>

:lol: :lol:

HMMMM, maybe there's an idea there, "Hey, I can get 50 miles per taco, and a bowl of bean soup will get me all the way to Rapic City

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ Apr 15 2006, 09:31 AM) [snapback]240182[/snapback]</div>

Did they check with their state's Environmental Protection department? Has a study been done to measure the effect of the effluent seeping into the soil under the dome on the groundwater? What about the potential release of methane to the atomosphere, and how will that impact the greenhouse gas issue? Once those issues are addressed, did they go to the local code agency and pull the proper permits? Did the plumbing fittings and pipe meet the appropriate ASME or IAMPO standards, and was it installed in a workmanlike manner by authorized personnel?

Its not so easy here. At least part of the high start up costs are the engineering and agency approvals the companies selling the equipment have already done.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Begreen @ Apr 15 2006, 02:17 PM) [snapback]240222[/snapback]</div>

Yes I know that, but we weren't talking about the many uses of poop, only it's conversion to a gas that's used for fuel.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Apr 15 2006, 11:59 PM) [snapback]240398[/snapback]</div>

I seriously hope you are joking.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ Apr 16 2006, 06:54 AM) [snapback]240476[/snapback]</div>

In California, a farmer could not create his own bio-mass methane generator without going through a code approval process. That includes consideration of ground water contamination because of the nitrites (or nitrates, can never keep them apart). And safety devices to make sure he doesn't build a giant fart-bomb.

(And no, I'm not joking).

 

Cool a giant Fart Bomb! instead of a boom you would hear a big phffffssssssttttt followed by a green mushroom cloud. LOL


Look at the county land fills they have pipes that let the methane escape /also ignite and burn the methane off...

I woonder why they have not tried to use it as an alt vehicle fuel source.??

 

Where I live, we are doing just that...City eyes project for renewable energy...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Apr 16 2006, 02:30 PM) [snapback]240561[/snapback]</div>

Landfill energy projects are sprouting up all over the place. SC has several of them. Most of them are small, 3-10 MW as far as I've read. I did run across one, in SC I think, that was 36 MW. A lot of the larger Dairy farms are exploring methane to energy. In texas there's an outfit that is collecting manure from feedlots, converting it to methane and pumping it straight into the NG pipeline system. They produce a fair amount of the stuff. In addition, they sell the remains of the manure as fertilizer.