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Biogas & fuel grade alchol
I remember quite recently, possibly in the past three months, some posts about biogas. Maybe a search is in order 
Chris & Shads,Chris said:I remember quite recently, possibly in the past three months, some posts about biogas. Maybe a search is in order
Jsizemore posted some interesting info & links on this in the following thread:
http://dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=171658
JS, want to elaborate?
Regards,
Keith
i will try to expand later
I am on a slow computer right now with out access to my saved links. But basically form what I have seen on line there is not much in the D.R. right now. However there are tons of info on the interent about exiasting and future biogas small and large scale production.
My personal opinion is to try and do anything large scale is foolish. I have watched taxes set up by executive order then rescended under threat of strike on the news archives on this board. Anything that could be made to make a proffit could be taxed out of existance in a whim. A small scale famrstead sized unit for independant living would be a good choice for my dreams. The cost of set up would be minimal and the fact that every home has to either have a back up system or go days or weeks without power is enough for me to be off the grid. Since I aspire to be what someone in another thread called a gentleman farmer I may as well play the part with the ranch setup ranch house with a satilite dish and full time internet. To do that I need power. I feel I can deliver my own needs with out subjecting myself to the system.
John
I am on a slow computer right now with out access to my saved links. But basically form what I have seen on line there is not much in the D.R. right now. However there are tons of info on the interent about exiasting and future biogas small and large scale production.
My personal opinion is to try and do anything large scale is foolish. I have watched taxes set up by executive order then rescended under threat of strike on the news archives on this board. Anything that could be made to make a proffit could be taxed out of existance in a whim. A small scale famrstead sized unit for independant living would be a good choice for my dreams. The cost of set up would be minimal and the fact that every home has to either have a back up system or go days or weeks without power is enough for me to be off the grid. Since I aspire to be what someone in another thread called a gentleman farmer I may as well play the part with the ranch setup ranch house with a satilite dish and full time internet. To do that I need power. I feel I can deliver my own needs with out subjecting myself to the system.
John
fuel grade alchohol
Fuel Grade alcohol is not a viable option for one reason. To make alcohol as a fuel you are basically making high strength whiskey. The retail price of whiskey is usually more than the retail on fuel. If you can make rum you can make fuel. I keep two Quarts of rubbing alcohol in my car at home just in case I run out of gas I dump the alcohol in my tank and it will get me to the gas station.
Bio Gas I feel is only viable on a stationary engine. The energy used to compress Methane into a mobile fuel is too high to be cost effective. For household use I do not feel the calories expended compared to calories produced add up. For a small hobby farm and up I feel there is some promise.
The reason I feel this is because the calories expended would have been expended in waste disposal already so you are only diverting the direction of effort put forth. With judicious use of solar and a biogas generator as a nighttime stand in I feel will give satisfactory results.
I am going to attempt to give you a sample energy food waste cycle to demonstrate what I feel would work. Lets assume you have say five acres. On these five acres you have a few farm animals. The types I mention are not set in stone. They are just an example of what I would like to see for my own use.
I would start out with poultry in a run that is about 6 feet wide that encircles my garden. They would eat crawling pest that cross the moat. I would pen them up at night in a pen with wood slats far enough a part to let droppings through and I would collect those droppings for the Digester. I would feed the digester and utilize the Biogas as a fuel source. For storage I feel I would use an inverted tank method with a water jacket to pressurize the gas.
There are four by products of a digester. One is of course Bio Gas mainly Methane and CO2 mixed. The others are effluent laden water. Sludge and Scum. The effluent laden water can be used several ways. Part of the effluent would be recycled back through the digester to mix with the manure and other organic matter to make the slurry needed to feed the digester. Part of it would be used as a fertilizer directly on the plants and the rest would be put into a settling pond that is used to grow alga. The algae would be fed into the digester as another form of organic matter. In the algae pond I would have crayfish. These make great food to feed poultry.
The sludge could be used directly on the plants as a fertilizer as is but I feel there is one more process to harvest more usefulness out of it. I would mix it with ground up tree limbs and other hard organic material in a compost bin and have a worm bed. I would feed worms my sludge. The worm casting I would use in raised beds for my gardens. The worm them selves could be used three ways one use as a fish food, another use as poultry food and third use as digester food.
The scum is stuff that could not be digested. However the worms will take care of it.
Fuel Grade alcohol is not a viable option for one reason. To make alcohol as a fuel you are basically making high strength whiskey. The retail price of whiskey is usually more than the retail on fuel. If you can make rum you can make fuel. I keep two Quarts of rubbing alcohol in my car at home just in case I run out of gas I dump the alcohol in my tank and it will get me to the gas station.
Bio Gas I feel is only viable on a stationary engine. The energy used to compress Methane into a mobile fuel is too high to be cost effective. For household use I do not feel the calories expended compared to calories produced add up. For a small hobby farm and up I feel there is some promise.
The reason I feel this is because the calories expended would have been expended in waste disposal already so you are only diverting the direction of effort put forth. With judicious use of solar and a biogas generator as a nighttime stand in I feel will give satisfactory results.
I am going to attempt to give you a sample energy food waste cycle to demonstrate what I feel would work. Lets assume you have say five acres. On these five acres you have a few farm animals. The types I mention are not set in stone. They are just an example of what I would like to see for my own use.
I would start out with poultry in a run that is about 6 feet wide that encircles my garden. They would eat crawling pest that cross the moat. I would pen them up at night in a pen with wood slats far enough a part to let droppings through and I would collect those droppings for the Digester. I would feed the digester and utilize the Biogas as a fuel source. For storage I feel I would use an inverted tank method with a water jacket to pressurize the gas.
There are four by products of a digester. One is of course Bio Gas mainly Methane and CO2 mixed. The others are effluent laden water. Sludge and Scum. The effluent laden water can be used several ways. Part of the effluent would be recycled back through the digester to mix with the manure and other organic matter to make the slurry needed to feed the digester. Part of it would be used as a fertilizer directly on the plants and the rest would be put into a settling pond that is used to grow alga. The algae would be fed into the digester as another form of organic matter. In the algae pond I would have crayfish. These make great food to feed poultry.
The sludge could be used directly on the plants as a fertilizer as is but I feel there is one more process to harvest more usefulness out of it. I would mix it with ground up tree limbs and other hard organic material in a compost bin and have a worm bed. I would feed worms my sludge. The worm casting I would use in raised beds for my gardens. The worm them selves could be used three ways one use as a fish food, another use as poultry food and third use as digester food.
The scum is stuff that could not be digested. However the worms will take care of it.
Both engines would be stationary.
My farm is not huge but signifigantly larger than hobby size, unless you consider 35 cows and 4 full time employees a hobby.
I am looking at biogas for two reasons. One is I produce several thousand pounds of manure a day and I would like to process it rather than send it raw to the field.
Second and more importantly, my farm requires power to run and a serious disruption of the diesel supply would be very difficult for us. Cost is less important in this case then having a backup.
Your other suggestions are interesting and useful for people running smaller scale hobby gardens
My farm is not huge but signifigantly larger than hobby size, unless you consider 35 cows and 4 full time employees a hobby.
I am looking at biogas for two reasons. One is I produce several thousand pounds of manure a day and I would like to process it rather than send it raw to the field.
Second and more importantly, my farm requires power to run and a serious disruption of the diesel supply would be very difficult for us. Cost is less important in this case then having a backup.
Your other suggestions are interesting and useful for people running smaller scale hobby gardens
I will eleborate more
I am getting ready to go out to sea again. I will in a week be at my computer at home where I can surf and post links to projects in the area you are looking for.
Another possible option for you is wood gasification. Burning wood in a control almost airless environment and then burning the gas produced in a gasoline engine. You get approximately a 25% less power out of the engine than you do by burning gasoline but it works. If I remember correctly it needs to be a carbonated engine. I think a good source of reference would by frysville farms in PA. But it has been like 15 years since I look at the process. Another good source is Mother Earth News Magazine. They have a website. They used to sell instruction plans for build the wood gasifiers out of hot water heaters. A 30 Gallon heater converted to produce the gas will power a pickup truck.
John
I am getting ready to go out to sea again. I will in a week be at my computer at home where I can surf and post links to projects in the area you are looking for.
Another possible option for you is wood gasification. Burning wood in a control almost airless environment and then burning the gas produced in a gasoline engine. You get approximately a 25% less power out of the engine than you do by burning gasoline but it works. If I remember correctly it needs to be a carbonated engine. I think a good source of reference would by frysville farms in PA. But it has been like 15 years since I look at the process. Another good source is Mother Earth News Magazine. They have a website. They used to sell instruction plans for build the wood gasifiers out of hot water heaters. A 30 Gallon heater converted to produce the gas will power a pickup truck.
John
BIOGAS on the small farm
I am sorry I did not have time to really respond to your previous post about your needs. It is 9 December and I am now at sea with not access to the Internet. Unfortunately my ship is an old one with out the full time Internet system that newer ships have. I am working from memory here and do not have all the facts and figures in front of me so I will keep my comments general. I will be leaving for the airport to fly into the Puerto Plata a few hours after my ship pulls in so I will post this with out as much information as I would like to give you.
First off I do not feel the biogas is an acceptable back up fuel. The process takes several days to work through and produce the gas. So it is not an instant process. So if you have the digester going you would be storing a tremendous amount of gas or venting it off and wasting it. However if you had a biogas system in place and say either had it used as a supplement to utility supplied electricity. I don't know maybe run a workshop with it or something along those lines and had this system sized for your emergency needs then I feel it would be a good option. I feel that biogas is not a cost effective standby though. I feel it should be used full time to be worth the trouble.
The investment in generator along seems a waste to have it sit there and still pay for electricity when the fuel is free. If you do not want to be bothered by the noise of a generator all the time and still want to have the biogas as an option then maybe another use for the biogas when not needed for electricity could be cost effective. A methane powered water-distilling plant to provide safe drinking water could be one option. With diesel or gasoline it is not cost effective to produce your own electricity full time Howe ever with biogas you are taking a waste product and turning it into power. We could argue the cost of processing (Labor) would make it less than cost effective but in reality the manure and crop waste would have to be disposed of regardless so that cost would be offset. I wish I knew the dry weight of the amount of manure you were dealing with. I know that each dry pound of manure produces 3 cubic feet of methane. Plant waste produces 7 cubic feet per pound but it is mixed with CO2. If I remember correctly the mixture of like 70% methane 30 CO2 works out just fine. I just don't have access to my notes right now.
If I were in a position of working with Biogas to fuel my home I would set up storage using inverted drums in water with a counter weight. I would determine what my three-day needs were for the generator and I would have that much storage. Then I would work out my digesters to meet those needs daily. I would prefer two or three small digesters to one large one. I feel that would allow me to store dry manure and then bring more digesters online as needed as the weather changes over the seasons. The digesters work best around 100 f but will do fine down to 70f. That is why they work well in the tropics. In temperate zones some of your fuel is used to heat the digesters. During the hottest part of the year I would need only one but in the cooler part of the year I may need all three to produce the gas. I do not know what your energy needs are for your farm but I feel that for moderate energy needs you could do fine with biogas.
John
I am sorry I did not have time to really respond to your previous post about your needs. It is 9 December and I am now at sea with not access to the Internet. Unfortunately my ship is an old one with out the full time Internet system that newer ships have. I am working from memory here and do not have all the facts and figures in front of me so I will keep my comments general. I will be leaving for the airport to fly into the Puerto Plata a few hours after my ship pulls in so I will post this with out as much information as I would like to give you.
First off I do not feel the biogas is an acceptable back up fuel. The process takes several days to work through and produce the gas. So it is not an instant process. So if you have the digester going you would be storing a tremendous amount of gas or venting it off and wasting it. However if you had a biogas system in place and say either had it used as a supplement to utility supplied electricity. I don't know maybe run a workshop with it or something along those lines and had this system sized for your emergency needs then I feel it would be a good option. I feel that biogas is not a cost effective standby though. I feel it should be used full time to be worth the trouble.
The investment in generator along seems a waste to have it sit there and still pay for electricity when the fuel is free. If you do not want to be bothered by the noise of a generator all the time and still want to have the biogas as an option then maybe another use for the biogas when not needed for electricity could be cost effective. A methane powered water-distilling plant to provide safe drinking water could be one option. With diesel or gasoline it is not cost effective to produce your own electricity full time Howe ever with biogas you are taking a waste product and turning it into power. We could argue the cost of processing (Labor) would make it less than cost effective but in reality the manure and crop waste would have to be disposed of regardless so that cost would be offset. I wish I knew the dry weight of the amount of manure you were dealing with. I know that each dry pound of manure produces 3 cubic feet of methane. Plant waste produces 7 cubic feet per pound but it is mixed with CO2. If I remember correctly the mixture of like 70% methane 30 CO2 works out just fine. I just don't have access to my notes right now.
If I were in a position of working with Biogas to fuel my home I would set up storage using inverted drums in water with a counter weight. I would determine what my three-day needs were for the generator and I would have that much storage. Then I would work out my digesters to meet those needs daily. I would prefer two or three small digesters to one large one. I feel that would allow me to store dry manure and then bring more digesters online as needed as the weather changes over the seasons. The digesters work best around 100 f but will do fine down to 70f. That is why they work well in the tropics. In temperate zones some of your fuel is used to heat the digesters. During the hottest part of the year I would need only one but in the cooler part of the year I may need all three to produce the gas. I do not know what your energy needs are for your farm but I feel that for moderate energy needs you could do fine with biogas.
John
the maximum manure I could collect would be about 1000 lb dry matter. So we are talking about 3000 cubic feet of methane.
If I was to go to the expense of building a system of this capacity, I would invest in a compressor and storage tank.
I currently use over 2 gallons of diesel a day to run a 25 KW plant. I would like to use biogas to supplement or replace this expense.
If I was to go to the expense of building a system of this capacity, I would invest in a compressor and storage tank.
I currently use over 2 gallons of diesel a day to run a 25 KW plant. I would like to use biogas to supplement or replace this expense.
If you have 25-30 kw needs, check out www.microturbine.com. Their systems are probably far in excess costwise of what you are looking at, but as I understand it, they are the cat's meow and run methane better than anything else.
microturbine
IH the smallest of the microturbines listed is at 30kw range which is the right size for what is discussed in this thread. Only question is the cost? makes me think more and more about how soon I am going to move down.
This is my last post for a few days. I am driving to the airport in a couple of hours. I will be in Sosua the 16th of december unitl the 26th.
John
IH the smallest of the microturbines listed is at 30kw range which is the right size for what is discussed in this thread. Only question is the cost? makes me think more and more about how soon I am going to move down.
This is my last post for a few days. I am driving to the airport in a couple of hours. I will be in Sosua the 16th of december unitl the 26th.
John
my understanding is that both gasoline and diesel engines can be converted to run on biogas. The would the most likely solution here
I don't think it is a stretch to run a gas engine on methane, if you are willing to put up with a lower peak horsepower. Perhaps a turbocharger could boost it back up. I wasn't aware that it is practical or even possible to run a diesel engine on methane. Methane is a low-energy/volume fuel.
diesel
According to the info I have read there needs to be a mixture of Kerosene into the fuel for methane to run a diesel. My argument against running biogas as a back up is still that once you spend the cash and energy to set up you are still spending cash on power otherwise. By the time you buy the compressor and set up the tanks you could have purchsed a lot of diesel. I do nto feel it is worth the cost unless you are going to run full time.
John
According to the info I have read there needs to be a mixture of Kerosene into the fuel for methane to run a diesel. My argument against running biogas as a back up is still that once you spend the cash and energy to set up you are still spending cash on power otherwise. By the time you buy the compressor and set up the tanks you could have purchsed a lot of diesel. I do nto feel it is worth the cost unless you are going to run full time.
John
Cng
Ok with honda anouncing the home fuleing station for natural gas powered cars I tracked down the info from the company that makes the station. This is the link http://www.myphill.com/benefits.htm. If someone had a BIO GAs geneorator I think it would make it a possable option.
Any Thoughts.
John
BTW I am now on terminal leave.
Ok with honda anouncing the home fuleing station for natural gas powered cars I tracked down the info from the company that makes the station. This is the link http://www.myphill.com/benefits.htm. If someone had a BIO GAs geneorator I think it would make it a possable option.
Any Thoughts.
John
BTW I am now on terminal leave.
Congrats upon entering the 'terminal Leave" status....
Bet you thought it would NEVER arrive, didn't you??
Now you can sit back for a couple of months and not worry about some dumb-john 2nd Lt. hammering your head and/or screwing up your retirement.
HOME FREE AT LAST!!!
Very Good Luck!!
And hoist a couple for "Absent Comrades"
Texas Bill
Bet you thought it would NEVER arrive, didn't you??
Now you can sit back for a couple of months and not worry about some dumb-john 2nd Lt. hammering your head and/or screwing up your retirement.
HOME FREE AT LAST!!!
Very Good Luck!!
And hoist a couple for "Absent Comrades"
Texas Bill
Why not work with biodiesel it is fairly easy to make, cheap and doesn't involve changing a dieselmotor except from stripping it from all rubber parts and replace them with modern materials that can resit the solvent that is biodiesel
Greetings
Johan
Greetings
Johan
Bio Diesel
my problem with bio diesel is according to what I have read it still requires some liquid fuel input such as small amount of Kerosene. That to me defeats the pourpose. However I am far from an expert so up for sugestions or new reading material.
John
my problem with bio diesel is according to what I have read it still requires some liquid fuel input such as small amount of Kerosene. That to me defeats the pourpose. However I am far from an expert so up for sugestions or new reading material.
John
If i'm not mistaking you're mixing 2 things up. Diesel motors running on vegetable oil (Like Diesel did with his first motor) that need to start and stop the motor Diesel and bio diesel which is a replacement made by oil, methanol and lye with a by product that is glycerine which can be used to make soap.
Greetings
Johan
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#start
Greetings
Johan
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#start