It ain't no secret
It's no secret that I am passionate about alternative energy. When I say passionate I don't mean eccentric, passion with logic is what I like to call it. That means that I want to know more, discover, more do small experiments, and wonder why some of the promises of alternative energy have not already been realized, but I'm not willing to jump on any train coming by pocket book open to other's products.
I think it stems from my father, he's the perfect example of an arm chair scientist. No training, no wish to gain knowledge but with an acute sense of logic regarding the fundamentals of mechanics and opinion of government. We constantly get into discussions over the cost of gas, and he is obsessed with gas mileage in his and other's vehicles.
I am not much more active than my father, I love to postulate about tidbits of information I get and ideas that come of such rudimentary understanding of whatever subject I read about last or popped into my mind. A perfect example is one that came to me this week when we cut the lawn for the first real time of the spring season, with new growth, warm from the above average March temperatures, the waste bin quickly turned to a smelly, stinky rotting stink bomb that could not be escaped from until the blessed sound of garbage trucks days later. That's when all the shows and articles on Methane gas production from land fills found their way into my head.
Why couldn't a home provide all or at least offset it's energy cost by composting it's lost vegetation, food and biodegradable paper waster in a drum in the back yard. Of course it's simple, just throw it in a bin, close the lid with a pipe that runs to some sort of engine that converts the power to electricity that's pumped back into the house. No huge array of inefficient solar cells blocking out the son from your back yard, or tip topping your roof like a failed architectural experiment at costs that take 7 to 10 years to recover.
Hope, a hole, just a hole, a hole with the ability to dump in more biodegradable material and pipes that run a generator.
Well Then there's the theory and then there's the research, don't worry this is not a story of lost hope, but one of new information and possibility of some sort of small scale success.
Here's what I thought I knew:
1. Compost heaps create methane.
2. Methane is combustible.
3. Any biodegradable material will compost and produce methane.
Turns out most of that is true. Composting does create methane but not nearly as well as SHIT, specifically cow or pig SHIT. It turns out that humans only produce enough methane producing SHIT to meet 1/60th of their electricity needs.
Methane is combustible but must be produced in an Oxygen less environment as the proper mix of air and methane can have (as intended) explosive side effects. This however is true of almost any fuel except diesel which requires extreme heat and pressure before being even flammable much less explosive.
Composting to produce methane relies on temperature being at at least 95 degrees. This can be a problem in winter, but of course pretty easy to obtain in summer. One solution to this problem comes from this website http://www.auri.org/news/ainjul01/05page.htm which directs the exhaust from the engine through the compost pile to obtain adequate temperature year round even underground.
Vegetable methane production is slow and not nearly as good at creating methane, the other problem is it gets trapped in continuous digesters and clogs up the system. So to do it at home you have to restart the process each time and clean it out when the fuel you put in has completely fermented, now at least the stuff you're left with is hardly STINKY and is a great fertilizer that can be used or sold, probably less practical on a home sized scale.
But there's hope, I got 10 people living in my house, we cook almost all our own food, other than the engine and generator the cost to start a sealed compost heap that produces methane should only be a few hundred dollars and of course figuring out how to get my MOTHER IN LAW TO SHIT IN A BUCKET!
Reference this website : http://www.viacorp.com/bio-gas.html
Thanks to Beth Cruzan of Oregon for providing this website with some great links
http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/The%20Magic%20of%20Methane/The%20Magic%20of%20Methane%20Home%20Page.htm
and the knowledge of what not to do.
Don't stop experiment Beth it's what makes the world a better place.
I think it stems from my father, he's the perfect example of an arm chair scientist. No training, no wish to gain knowledge but with an acute sense of logic regarding the fundamentals of mechanics and opinion of government. We constantly get into discussions over the cost of gas, and he is obsessed with gas mileage in his and other's vehicles.
I am not much more active than my father, I love to postulate about tidbits of information I get and ideas that come of such rudimentary understanding of whatever subject I read about last or popped into my mind. A perfect example is one that came to me this week when we cut the lawn for the first real time of the spring season, with new growth, warm from the above average March temperatures, the waste bin quickly turned to a smelly, stinky rotting stink bomb that could not be escaped from until the blessed sound of garbage trucks days later. That's when all the shows and articles on Methane gas production from land fills found their way into my head.
Why couldn't a home provide all or at least offset it's energy cost by composting it's lost vegetation, food and biodegradable paper waster in a drum in the back yard. Of course it's simple, just throw it in a bin, close the lid with a pipe that runs to some sort of engine that converts the power to electricity that's pumped back into the house. No huge array of inefficient solar cells blocking out the son from your back yard, or tip topping your roof like a failed architectural experiment at costs that take 7 to 10 years to recover.
Hope, a hole, just a hole, a hole with the ability to dump in more biodegradable material and pipes that run a generator.
Well Then there's the theory and then there's the research, don't worry this is not a story of lost hope, but one of new information and possibility of some sort of small scale success.
Here's what I thought I knew:
1. Compost heaps create methane.
2. Methane is combustible.
3. Any biodegradable material will compost and produce methane.
Turns out most of that is true. Composting does create methane but not nearly as well as SHIT, specifically cow or pig SHIT. It turns out that humans only produce enough methane producing SHIT to meet 1/60th of their electricity needs.
Methane is combustible but must be produced in an Oxygen less environment as the proper mix of air and methane can have (as intended) explosive side effects. This however is true of almost any fuel except diesel which requires extreme heat and pressure before being even flammable much less explosive.
Composting to produce methane relies on temperature being at at least 95 degrees. This can be a problem in winter, but of course pretty easy to obtain in summer. One solution to this problem comes from this website http://www.auri.org/news/ainjul01/05page.htm which directs the exhaust from the engine through the compost pile to obtain adequate temperature year round even underground.
Vegetable methane production is slow and not nearly as good at creating methane, the other problem is it gets trapped in continuous digesters and clogs up the system. So to do it at home you have to restart the process each time and clean it out when the fuel you put in has completely fermented, now at least the stuff you're left with is hardly STINKY and is a great fertilizer that can be used or sold, probably less practical on a home sized scale.
But there's hope, I got 10 people living in my house, we cook almost all our own food, other than the engine and generator the cost to start a sealed compost heap that produces methane should only be a few hundred dollars and of course figuring out how to get my MOTHER IN LAW TO SHIT IN A BUCKET!
Reference this website : http://www.viacorp.com/bio-gas.html
Thanks to Beth Cruzan of Oregon for providing this website with some great links
http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/The%20Magic%20of%20Methane/The%20Magic%20of%20Methane%20Home%20Page.htm
and the knowledge of what not to do.
Don't stop experiment Beth it's what makes the world a better place.
posted by Cemseller at 10:52 AM
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