Methane!

[dragonlaurel]

...
I still think it sounds amazing. I mean how renewable can you get? In the self sufficient book it states that a single human can create enough methane in a day to boil 2/3 of a teapot and that a single cow can produce enough in a day to boil 5 teakettles. Doesn't seem like much, but multiply that by the number of people, cows, dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, and pretty much any domesticated/captive animal and you have crazy amounts. Then consider in the landfills that have methane in them.

Talk about the ultimate recycling. Use it for fuel and then fertilize it.

Anything that eats, poops. That's pretty darn renewable to me. LOL

You could make enough energy to keep the the stock water from freezing for the animals at the least. More critters = more energy. Best excuse I've heard in a while for getting even more ( insert your favorite animal here).

 

[Wolf-Kim]

I figured with a small herd of cattle, some goats, chickens, quail, rabbits, dogs, and other critters I should have enough to cover lighting for the barns and water heaters and such.

I guess depending on just how much manure one has access to and the size holding tank they have, they may be able to run their house off of it. I know that around here, anyone with broiler houses litterally has a mountain or two of poo, and then and hog barns would be a gold mine for such a thing.

I just think that it is strange that methane is not created/collected and utilized more widely already. You would think that all the factory farms out there would be all over it, they have to move and deal with the poo in mass quantities anyway.

I know my husband and I went to a broiler farm that his grandparent's know and they let us and anyone else have as much "fertilizer" as we wanted. It was literally a mountain of poo.

 

[dacjohns]

The image of capturing our own methane.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

The image of capturing our own methane.

Well, a person makes enough to boil half a pot. LOL

Then if you want to conserve water, you could always use a composting toilet. I have a friend in Alaska, that used one when he worked with the DMV. He said there was really truly no smell, except for the wood chips. I read somewhere that 1/3(or was it 2/3, something like that) of a houses water goes down the toilet. Only to put it in a septic tank, which could become backed up and costs $$$ anyway. So, these composting toilets have intrigued me quite a bit lately(hubby is whole heartedly set against them. ). If you built your own methane digester, then when you occasionally emptied your composting toilet, it could be piled into the digester with everything else and the end result used for fertilizer and fuel.

The whole thought intrigues me. To take the waste, place it in a methane digester, to make and collect methane, and then the leftover sludge composted into soil or simply used as fertilizer for plants which would be fed back into the animals and the process repeats.

 

[Farmfresh]

I found this site online a while back and thought you might be interested in it. We Power The Dairy With Methane From Our Cows! Straus Family Creamery

 

[mygor]

We have an egg farm in Ohio that uses this technology. They built a Biodigester to make methane from chicken poop. They run 3 generators from this setup. All extra power is sold back to the grid.

If you wanted to run your car from this the easiest way would be to convert your car to electric. There is a company in Canada that makes conversion kits. Mainly for S-10 pickups for about 10K + batteries. Here are some links.

http://www.canev.com/

http://www.evamerica.com/evcomponentpackages.html

 

[hwillm1977]

Our local landfill is installing this tech now... to harness the gases given off by the landfill and using that to produce electricity.

http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/news/env/2008e1557ev.htm

 

[LaSombra]

I found this site online a while back and thought you might be interested in it. We Power The Dairy With Methane From Our Cows! Straus Family Creamery

I loved reading about that farm. Really great thing they're doing there.

 

[txhomegrown]

I have been doing some reading on this lately and think it would be a great way to go. I am wondering how much gas you need to produce to run a good sized generator 24/7? The systems I have seen are measured in cubic meters.
I found this info on a site about building really big systems using mostly local materials.

"Before deciding the size of plant, it is necessary to collect dung for several days to determine what is the average daily dung production. The amount of dung daily available helps in determining the capacity of the plant. For example, if 55 kg of dung is collected daily, a 8 m3 plant has to be selected. It should be kept in mind that at least six kg dung is required for 1 m3 of plant capacity. The important point to be considered is that the size of plant has to be selected on basis of available dung not on the family size."
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_nepal.html

Not too practical for the home, but there is some usable info.

But I still can't seem to find out how much gas you actually use to produce enough electricity to make it worth the effort.

 

[Farmfresh]

I think it would depend on the efficiency of your generator.

As I understand the process - and maybe I am WAY off - you produce and basically bottle the gas and then burn it, similar to burning propane. You use the gas to power a generator which then makes the electricity. If I am right the amount of electricity produced/per poo would be based on how efficiently your generator produced the electricity. Instead of miles to gallon it would be like poos to kilowatts.