5Kw home power methane system - help needed

[ashtweth]

Guys lets build this. Ideas needed please, ill build it and open source it. Its been there ALL the time, we have kitchen scraps, why not make into energy.

some starter ideas
The Methane Midden - Heat / Energy with Compost by Robert Frost — Kickstarter

Ash

[ashtweth]

Methane Biodigester How To - YouTube

[ashtweth]

http://www.mrec.org/pubs/Anaerobic_Report.pdf

[kawsarat45]

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led lamp

[ashtweth]

Guys here is a small genset running off methane, forget the non working GEET
Tiny Biogas Generator - YouTube

another
First test of our biogas converted electric generator. - YouTube

20Kw
20 KVA Genrator Runing on Biogas - YouTube

[Cherryman]

Guys here is a small genset running off methane, forget the non working GEET
Tiny Biogas Generator - YouTube

another
First test of our biogas converted electric generator. - YouTube

20Kw
20 KVA Genrator Runing on Biogas - YouTube

Hmm intresting idear Ash.

I Got a small generator
But it could light camping gas lights (heat as well)
I have a small fridge that can run on gas
And of course cooking

One of the first questions would be, how much biogas would we need?
In this article they claim continuously running capability of the waste of one human: http://www.energeticforum.com/agricu...otorcycle.html

In other words, it would be great if we could get some calculation of wastbin size and gas output. Then everyone could calculate the seize they need for their powerusage.

Here is a very simple startsetup: See this guy using a watter bottle to power a burner for a stirling: From cow poop to shaft power! - YouTube

Good idea!

[dutchdivco]

Here's my take

Ironically, methane digestion is not something thts very practical for an individual household to do, as I understand it.Even if you count all the crap you and your family produce, AND the organic material from the kitchen, etc. you wouldn't begin to generate the amount of methane you would need to come close to producing the energy needs of your household. At least that is my 'take', based on my research.

If you have a farm/ranch, with 1000 head of cattle, or pigs, etc. THEN it makes sense. Also, it takes a storage system to store the gas, which is cumbersome, as the gas isn't produced under a lot of pressure, or you need to expend additional energy to compress it.

I have wondered about using an "Oxygen generator" to compress such a gas, or the gas produced by converting plastic to fuel, as described in another thread by Jetsis, which also produces a certain amount of a flamable gas like butane. I have seen used oxygen generators selling on craigslist fairly inexpensively; they are basically a series of compressors, each one slightly smaller than the one before, and a zeolyte 'filter' which pulls the nitrogen out of the air.Remove the 'filter', and you have a compressor which SHOULD be capable of compressing methane or butane to the kind of pressures necesary to make storing it practical, (I think).

I did read that just 1 sewage treatment plant in LA runs 10 1000hp diesel engines off of the methane gas produced by the sewage plant. They tap into them to run various pumps, etc., but the main reason they set up these diesel engines in the first place was it was the safest way they could conme up with to dispose of the gas! 10 1000hp diesel engines, running 24/7 is a LOT of gas, and represents a lot of energy. Seems like they COULD be used to run generators, to produce electricity, OR the gas cold be piped back to the same houses that are producing the sewage, to be used to cook and heat water.But no, they burn it up in diesel engines, as a safe way of disposing of it!

I have long thought this was an underdeveloped resource, (Methane gas), however while I personally LIKE decentralised, on site and DIY solutions, I think this MAY be one that is more practical as a centralised collaborative effort.

IF, and its a big IF, we sorted our garbage, with all organic material going down the garbage disposal, and piping the methane from the sewage plant back to the homes.IF we seperated our non-organic waste, so it could be used to produce liquid and gaseous fuel, and IF the houses were made as energy efficient as practical, its possible that a community COULD be established that ould be energy efficient.

It would require lifestyle changes most people would, as yet, be unwilling to make, I'm afraid.We would have to be moved away from our whole consumerist, bigger is better, more will make me happy culture, and I see nothing, AS YET, to indicate significant moves in that direction.

Anyway, Methane is greatly underexploited, even with the few companies that HAVE begun to work with it.Thats my take, for what its worth. Jim

[everyidea]

Needs 90F to work

It's a great idea but doesn't work for home use in Oregon. We only have one month that comes close to 90F temps. so it's a no go for here. If you live in a place where the temp. is 80-100F year round then it's a great way to power one's home.

Reactors are very easy to make, just a big large rubber tube that you feed waste and seal up. Put an exhaust pipe in the middle to draw the methane and you're there. On the other end of the tube is great manure to use in gardens. But, the enzymes do need 90F to live and convert waste.

Our dump does burn-offs of their methane, such a waste. They've got the buildup of waste to heat the pile to 90F+ so it works for them. But, for residential, not so much.

- On second thought, I guess I could build a solar sweat box... but it would chill up pretty bad at night though...

rw

[ashtweth]

Guys also seems like a good idea for those with GEET generators that never worked, we have some our selves. Think all those with 10KW or 5KW genset should make this set up cheap and run Bedini motors or some thing, seems cheap

what do you think?

[dutchdivco]

2 different enzymes

I believe there are 2 different enzymes; 1 lives/produces at 90-100 degrees, the other at 130-140, (going from memory, here). Yes, of all the technogies, this is probably the 'simplest', low tech out there. Unfortunately, as I said, an individual, or an individual household, is not going to produce enough gas to make it practical, from my understanding.As in "Oh, boy! I spent 200hrs. and $5000 and got a system to work! It takes ALL the waste from my household, and produces methane gas, and a liquid fertiliser!",....."Gretat! So,...your energy self-sufficient, then?" "No, actually, I produce enough methane, every month, to run my house water heater for about,....an hour."
This may be a slight exageration, but this is the problem, as I understand it.

One thing that DID occur to me, but I haven't gotten around to actually TRYING it; put a snorkel on the end of a piece of hose, say,...300' long.Feed the snorkel end into the 'vent' for your houses sewage system, and on up into the sewers.Run the other end of the hose thru a 'bubbler', to act as a 1-way valve.then feed the gas from the bubbler to the intake on your genset.

Their MIGHT be enough methane gas, in the sewer system, mixed with air, to run a genset. Is it stealing to use the gas that the sewage treatment people think of as a nuisance, anyway, and just burn off? I don't know, but I'm sure they would shut you down for safety violations,.....if they knew

Anyway, in this way you might very probably get enough gas to run a genset, 24/7. If so, this would probably be the most practical way for one individual household to operate on 'free' methane gas. Unless you have a 1000 head ranch, of coarse.

The real 'killer' is that methane gas is a 'greenhouse' gas; I saw one 'study' that said that the cattle raised in the US put out far more greenhouse gas every year, than all the auto's put together. Coarse, cattle manure isn't putting out particulates, etc. this was JUST talking about 'greenhouse gases', Jim

[ashtweth]

Real simple designs here guys
Animation of a simple telescoping biogas digester - YouTube

And
How to Build an Anaerobic Methane Digester - YouTube

Vietnam and India decentralize the grid this way, They power gensets and more.

[ashtweth]

check the simple design i just posted, wonder what the MATH, is on that with what waste and how much gas it needs to at least HALF your power bill,

you could at least half or lower power bill CHEAP with a simple kitchen scrap model, or use it to power a genset charge your batteries,
irregardless its SAFE and CHEAP back up power(or saving)

Ash

[dutchdivco]

Ash,

Not trying to be negative, just realistic/practical. I got REAL excited, back in the 60's-70's when I first read about this. I imagined running my house off the methane gas from my families waste; sewer and garbage scraps, maybe some rabbit droppings? Feeding it to a genset, and telling the UTE co. to stick it, while running all sorts of electrical appliances, etc. off it.
Never actually DID it, but I did research it, and FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, your NOT going to run the 'typical' house; that is power it totally or primarily off of methane.We just use too much power, and our 'waste' doesn't produce enough gas.
Now, if you eschew the 'standard' lifestyle, which is very energy gobbling, and use methane as 1 of several different alternative sources, and don't figure its going to supply ALL your needs, then yeah, its definetly do-able.
In fact, its the lowest tech of the 'alternative' energy sources out there.

It could be used in conjuction with jetsys "Plastic into Diesel", for instance.Because even tho the system he is working on produces a fuel like diesel, and a fuel like gasoline, it ALSO produces a gaseous fuel, like methane/butane. No reason why that gas couldn't be stored with the methane from the digester. And, he has to heat the plastic up, in order to do the conversion process, but I'm not sure the gaseous fuel produced is enough to operate the system, by itself.Methane could 'fill' the gap, perhaps?

And, something I've been thinking of for that project, to store it more practically; I see used oxygen concentrators on craigslist all the time, going fairly cheap; $100-$300 ea.) Saw the inside of one, once; its a series of graduated size compressors; so the output from the first comprseeor goes into a slightly smaller compressor, and so on, in order to compress to considerable amounts. And, it has a zonolyte (?) filter, to remove the nitrogen.
Not sure you would need that, for this purpose. I don't think these oxygen concentrators use a tremendous amount of energy, so it might be practical to use. Also wondered about a wind turbine, running a compressor.

Like the idea of used 'propane' refrigerator, as they run on a little pilot light, which is on, 24/7. If your not going to compress the gas, you want to use it as it is being produced, because storing it takes a lot of space, and DOES have certain dangers. Wonder if such a refirgerator could be modified, to be an A/C unit? Should work, in which case you could use the gas to refrigerate food, and perhaps cool your house? Just didn't want people having flights of fantasy, like I did, and imagining they could get all their energy needs, from the poop and garbage they produce, is all.
Actually, could also look at a produce (plant) that would give you the most gas, with the least amount of work/land, and grow the raw material. And, animals are still a great bet; rabbits would be good, as the waste would be very easy to collect.Unfortunately, according to Rick, if you try to sell them, as pets or as meat, the FDA will shut you down Fuggin go'ment. They would also probably find you in violation of something, if they found out you were producing more than a farts worth of methane.Jim

[wings]

Guys here is a small genset running off methane, forget the non working GEET
Tiny Biogas Generator - YouTube

another
First test of our biogas converted electric generator. - YouTube

20Kw
20 KVA Genrator Runing on Biogas - YouTube

A Small-Scale Bio Dig Ester Designed and Built in the Philippines by Gerry Baron

sazzad

[Savvypro]

The real 'killer' is that methane gas is a 'greenhouse' gas; I saw one 'study' that said that the cattle raised in the US put out far more greenhouse gas every year, than all the auto's put together. Coarse, cattle manure isn't putting out particulates, etc. this was JUST talking about 'greenhouse gases', Jim

Because of that cattle study, there is a group in New Zealand who are trying to develop a bacteria "supplement" to give to live stock, so that they would produce less methane. But here is kicker, a lot of the cattle in the study were feed on corn - food the cattle are not able to digest properly, thus the methane production. If the cattle are feed on what their biology evolved on, then they would produce less methane and the corn could be used for alcohol production. Actually it's better to make alcohol from the corn then feed the processed corn + yeast waste to the cattle than the corn. But that's a different story altogether. The morel of the story is that people are wasting time and energy to develop a complex solution, when the actual solution is to stop being incompetent and stupid (feeding cattle food they can't process) and feed them what they evolved on.


On a different note; Here in the UK there is a buffalo farm which uses all the rear end waste of the buffalo to create methane to use as a fuel source to run the farm. They also sell the solid waste once it's been digested as garden compost/fertiliser. They use a large digester setup and have about 50 to 100 buffalos.

I also saw a horse stable use the rear end waste in a low tech way. They have a pit/trench which they just dump the crap in. With in the pit they have water pipes which zig zag the pit. As the crap decomposes, it heats the water in the pipes. I believe they also sell the decomposed crap as compost/fertiliser but they only extract the heat.