The Appeal of Animal Waste (biogas)

[jpak]

http://www.renewableaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=49621

The whole idea stinks. But generating heat and power from livestock manure is appealing. The compost is placed into an oxygen-free machine that separates the methane gas and then uses it to create electricity to power farms or transport over the grid.

The technology is an important component in the fight against climate change. Normally, farms store the waste in a lagoon and then later use it as a fertilizer. But, that natural decomposition creates methane, which is actually 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to affecting the Earth's temperature.

The ability to capture that gas and then reuse it in an environmentally friendly manner not only lessens greenhouse gas output; it also reduces the need for other types of fuel sources.

Experts also say that the process by which the methane is extracted through an "anaerobic digester"—an oxygen free machine—cuts both odors as well as the volume of solid manure by 90 percent. It thereby minimizes surface and groundwater contamination. The remaining waste makes for better quality fertilizer. About 135 electricity-producing manure digesters now exist on U.S. farms, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Those systems produce 248 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

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[LiberalEsto]

1. Now that's NATURAL gas! nt

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Hey, there is plenty of animal waste coming out of the White House

and something should be done with it.

[kestrel91316]

3. Anaerobic digesters have been producing biogas for electricity from human

waste here in Los Angeles for over 50 years. It isn't even close to NEW technology, and ALL large livestock producers and human waste treatment facilities should be doing it, IMHO.

http://www.lasewers.org/treatment_plants/hyperion/index.htm

Note the domed structures in the pic - those are the digesters.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Animal Waste: My Summer Road Trip Was Highly Educational

My summer road trip was highly educational in regards to animal waste. I got some very big whiffs of manure from feed lots near Lubbock and Amarillo.

I'm all for using livestock manure for bio-gas. My only question is whether it might be more efficient to the methane produced by decomposing manure to run fuel cells instead of burning it to heat water to run boilers or turbines to generate electricity?

[Kolesar]

6. Biogas is ~30% CO2 and ~10% other gas and may not work in a reformer/fuel-cell

So they burn it. That is what I recall of the composition from the new Akron biogas plant the sewer district put in.

[wordpix]

5. expand the idea & technology to produce methane from human manure

With 5 1/2 billion humans, there is plenty of natural gas for all!

[Kolesar]

7. Akron does it

I cannot seem to find the article, but the Beacon Journal described it: www.ohio.com