Biogas Resources

[gaz1]

easy enough

to give you an idea what you will be playing with

 

[gaz1]

other easier alternatives

wood chips or pellets

but you can use this to make the charcoal which also gives you a gas

 

[Gareth J]

Put bluntly, if a sack of free cow manure could give me a tank of free hot water it's a no brainer.

Think that should be your starting point. Figure out just how big your "sack" needs to be before getting too deep. (A pun may be applicable here)

 

[Kayos]

I am installing one at a well known office block in London. That takes the food waste and uses that

My engineering team are designing one for a cattle auction in Wales, this may also get the local schools food waste added to it

 

[Gareth J]

I am installing one at a well known office block in London. That takes the food waste and uses that

My engineering team are designing one for a cattle auction in Wales, this may also get the local schools food waste added to it

My knowledge is limited but I understand the additional of uneaten food waste is big help regarding output? (As well as being able to factor in the disposal cost of food waste)

 

[Kayos]

My knowledge is limited but I understand the additional of uneaten food waste is big help regarding output? (As well as being able to factor in the disposal cost of food waste)

Without the food waste the Welsh site is only just viable, due to the limited amount of time animals are in site and hence the limited waste collected

With food waste, a large PV array plus some battery storage they can supply a local manufacturer with 90% of their electricity through a private wire agreement (when open the cattle auction will self consume some of the generated power)

This is sold at a long term fixed price, giving the local authority a fixed income and stability plus savings for the manufacturer

 

[addjunkie]

So basically you want to build a small CHP.

Heat generation is one thing but generation requires a turbine and a boiler. You're getting into expensive territory in terms of construction and also certification then.

boiler and steam turbines are an inefficient by modern standards method of generating power. Many of the old land fill sites and some of the larger cattle farms have the gas gathering that supplies a gas engine turning a generator.

The byproducts of slurry generation are valuable to as its fertiliser

Turning cow slurry into electricity at the University Farm | Sustainability

The Sustainability Team have been working with the University Farm to install a slurry-fuelled Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant at the Farm. The plant is now up and running and, in the month of August, was the second most efficient system of its size in Europe!

www.environment.admin.cam.ac.uk

 

[8ob]

My knowledge is limited but I understand the additional of uneaten food waste is big help regarding output? (As well as being able to factor in the disposal cost of food waste)

Household waste in general will make methane, old landfill sites sometimes get clay capped and piped up for methane extraction. We worked on the landscape/tree planting side of things at a big site near Canterbury and one near here that were producing gas to run some pretty big generators . As the ground sinks over the years the tops of these vertical extraction pipes have to be cut down, on one of the sites about thirty foot of pipe was removed over a period of ten years, weird to think that such a large area could sink through rotting rubbish to that extent.

Bob

 

[addjunkie]

Household waste in general will make methane, old landfill sites sometimes get clay capped and piped up for methane extraction. We worked on the landscape/tree planting side of things at a big site near Canterbury and one near here that were producing gas to run some pretty big generators . As the ground sinks over the years the tops of these vertical extraction pipes have to be cut down, on one of the sites about thirty foot of pipe was removed over a period of ten years, weird to think that such a large area could sink through rotting rubbish to that extent.

Bob

In reality the oil and gas were burn now are just rotton organic waste from eons ago burried and left to rot in an enclosed rock formation

 

[daleyd]

Can't be that difficult, Tom Goode was doing this stuff in 1975

 

[frank horton]

there's/was an ex council tip in Salford prod elec from methane....
I think we missed the easy way......
move upstairs n put cows in what was ur living room free heat and all the fart gas u can use....hahaha...
great subject..
a very long time ago I advised a friend that was having trouble with the local council in the US....his family farm ^been there generations)
started to farm chickens....
anyway the town got bigger along with the supply of chicken then the townies complained of the smell.....it was pretty bad.....
so between us we enclosed the sheds so that the stink would get sucked into a huge Catapiller D engine and gen elec which was used to run the farm....
everybody was happy...

 

[addjunkie]

move upstairs n put cows in what was ur living room free heat and all the fart gas u can use....hahaha...
great subject..

In days gone by thats how folk kept warm before all this woke culture of central heating. Very common round these parts in the Border Reiver times!

We have a poo picker quite surprising* just how warm it gets if not emptied from the day before

 

[8ob]

Methane is a greenhouse gas, don't know if its any worse than the co2 it produces when burned.

Bob

 

[mtt.tr]

Methane is a greenhouse gas, don't know if its any worse than the co2 it produces when burned.

Bob

I'm lead to believe methane has a more powerful greenhouse effect but does break down.

Why can't anything be simple

 

[Onoff]

other easier alternatives

How is it easier when already said, the free resource is cow manure, produced on site right where where any eventual "gas" would be utilised?

 

[addjunkie]

How is it easier when already said, the free resource is cow manure, produced on site right where where any eventual "gas" would be utilised?

Realistically speaking cow manure, or manure of any variety will have value due to the price of fertiliser. So it will probably not be “given away“.
I could see this being very successful in say large dairy farms, where manure is in abundance, and already collected. But they also need to fertilise there grass too. And do-they have any spare margin left after the supermarkets drive prices, to invest. Id have thought in this case solar shed roofs would be far more viable.

 

[Onoff]

We worked on the landscape/tree planting side of things at a big site near Canterbury

As you come up on the old road from the McDonalds at Greenhithe, up the hill to Stone, there used to be a landfill on the left. Ostensibly a green field with some traveller horses grazing. That had pipes sticking up and some sort of auto igniter. It was just burnt off periodically maybe when the pressure hit a certain level?

Just up from the Thames it was quite cool to see the flares on a misty morning. I'm going back nearly 40 years. Would be considered a wicked waste now.

I remember struggling round Woolwich barracks assault course about the same time. Some twonk of a fat NCO screaming at me. I still managed to marvel at the swamp gas bubbling up from the manky black ponds we were expected to run through!

 

[Onoff]

So it will probably not be “given away“.

It's not for me, for the herd owner.

 

[wyn]

If it's going in an AD plant it might just need the liquid and not the solids.
It might be better with cow slurry then squeeze the liquid out.

 

[Onoff]

Methane is a greenhouse gas, don't know if its any worse than the co2 it produces when burned.

Bob

Approx 25x worse than CO2 for trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Don't know how much of it is gas company spiel but I believe it's better to utilize it for energy production than release it "unburnt".

https://www.socalgas.com/stay-safe/methane-emissions/methane-and-the-environment