Community Forum For "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" Readers
Methane production is fun!
Rather than spending money on electricity, firewood, or fossil fuels to produce ethanol and heat your home/workspace, with some creative ingenuity and a bit of space you can take what most consider waste and turn it into usable energy. If you have yard waste in the form of tree branches, grass clippings, or other biomass that is often discarded, you can harvest methane and heat water rather than pay the local dump to take it.
Farmers have known for some time that if you bale hay or other cellulose while it still contains a high water content, it will overheat and catch fire. Why would it catch fire just resting peacefully in the field or in a hay loft? The answer is simple, and without getting too complex or involved, lets just say basically it is microbes feasting on the plant material that creates enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion. Digestion creates heat and that heat can be controlled and harvested so it can be put to use doing work for us.
In addition to the heat, those microbes will also produce methane in the absence of oxygen. Methane is a naturally occurring gas that can be utilized to make heat as well as used to make electricity using an internal combustion engine. When methane burns it leaves mainly CO2 and H2O, doesn't that sound eerily familiar to something else derived from natural sources? Ethanol perhaps? There are more similarities between the production and use of both fuels, taking advantage of them can lower the cost of your fuel production as well as power/heat your home.
Methane is a greenhouse gas, but in reality using the methods here is not adding to climate change since if the yard waste or wood chips were allowed to decompose in a dump, they would still emit methane, we are merely allowing nature to take its course in such a way that we can gather the gas to use rather than simply be vented to the atmosphere.
There are two main ways to create methane gas. One is the decomposition of animal wastes, if you live on a farm or near one, you might be able to take advantage of the methane produced there as well. You really do not want to light a match in a hog confinement, nor do you want to enter the pit beneath it without an oxygen supply. There are many ways to harvest methane produced in this way, some dating back centuries that are quite efficient in production. If you live in an urban area, a hog or cattle farm might not be the best source of methane for you.
So how can we take clippings from the largest irrigated and fertilized crop in the USA and make them something useful? A man in France named Jean Pain discovered a way to do exactly that. Although Pain used wood chips, grass clippings and other cellulose still create heat and methane when they decompose. An entire town used his method to heat buildings and homes as well as to provide electricity using little or no fossil fuels. There is more information about Mr Pain and his ideas provided in these links. The youtube videos are in German but they have subtitles in English, and they show the process of building Pain's biogas plant.
This is the place I first learned of Jean Pain and his invention, this article spawned months of research into methane production.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGCj7NA0OIs&feature=related
This link is for a wealth of information on methane and the production from animal wastes, if you have the resource why not utilize it, even if it does have a certain aroma to it?
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/MethaneDigesters/MD...
The Nepal biogas plant also uses animal waste, it has been used for centuries.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_nepal.html
The manure option is there for some, for others they simply cant make methane that way. I am one of those people who does not have access to livestock, and after growing up on a farm in Nebraska, I have no intention of getting smelly either. :) However I do live in a rather large forest, and cellulose waste is very abundant here, while good soil for crop production is quite rare. One of the major benefits for ethanol producers to use a methane digester of either type, is the fertilizer and soil that comes from them.
Making ethanol from plants utilizes only certain parts of most plants, and requires growing those plants in the first place. Combining methane production is a very good way to utilize more of the crop, as well as grow more of it in the first place.
What comes out of the digester is a nutrient rich topsoil or a very good fertilizer. Mr Pain's biogas plant ran for 18 months at a time, and provided him with soil for a garden in an area that was not considered useful for agriculture. Take note in the article on how often he had to irrigate his garden in a relatively arid part of France, and the types of crops he was able to grow due to the rich soil he "made" while heating his home.
Considering CO2 is produced when methane and ethanol are burned, and that CO2 is what plants use along with sunlight to make starch, why wouldn't we want to allow those plants to get the CO2 from fermentation and power production? Plants grow much faster, much larger, and produce better with the addition of CO2.
The benefits from methane production can outweigh the added effort considerably, and it can also be used to lower the cost of producing fuel dramatically. It is out there, all you need to do is collect it. Currently we are working on methods of collection that are relatively inexpensive and technically simple so that almost anyone can utilize this abundant powerful resource.
Farmers have known for some time that if you bale hay or other cellulose while it still contains a high water content, it will overheat and catch fire. Why would it catch fire just resting peacefully in the field or in a hay loft? The answer is simple, and without getting too complex or involved, lets just say basically it is microbes feasting on the plant material that creates enough heat to cause spontaneous combustion. Digestion creates heat and that heat can be controlled and harvested so it can be put to use doing work for us.
In addition to the heat, those microbes will also produce methane in the absence of oxygen. Methane is a naturally occurring gas that can be utilized to make heat as well as used to make electricity using an internal combustion engine. When methane burns it leaves mainly CO2 and H2O, doesn't that sound eerily familiar to something else derived from natural sources? Ethanol perhaps? There are more similarities between the production and use of both fuels, taking advantage of them can lower the cost of your fuel production as well as power/heat your home.
Methane is a greenhouse gas, but in reality using the methods here is not adding to climate change since if the yard waste or wood chips were allowed to decompose in a dump, they would still emit methane, we are merely allowing nature to take its course in such a way that we can gather the gas to use rather than simply be vented to the atmosphere.
There are two main ways to create methane gas. One is the decomposition of animal wastes, if you live on a farm or near one, you might be able to take advantage of the methane produced there as well. You really do not want to light a match in a hog confinement, nor do you want to enter the pit beneath it without an oxygen supply. There are many ways to harvest methane produced in this way, some dating back centuries that are quite efficient in production. If you live in an urban area, a hog or cattle farm might not be the best source of methane for you.
So how can we take clippings from the largest irrigated and fertilized crop in the USA and make them something useful? A man in France named Jean Pain discovered a way to do exactly that. Although Pain used wood chips, grass clippings and other cellulose still create heat and methane when they decompose. An entire town used his method to heat buildings and homes as well as to provide electricity using little or no fossil fuels. There is more information about Mr Pain and his ideas provided in these links. The youtube videos are in German but they have subtitles in English, and they show the process of building Pain's biogas plant.
This is the place I first learned of Jean Pain and his invention, this article spawned months of research into methane production.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGCj7NA0OIs&feature=related
This link is for a wealth of information on methane and the production from animal wastes, if you have the resource why not utilize it, even if it does have a certain aroma to it?
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/MethaneDigesters/MD...
The Nepal biogas plant also uses animal waste, it has been used for centuries.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_nepal.html
The manure option is there for some, for others they simply cant make methane that way. I am one of those people who does not have access to livestock, and after growing up on a farm in Nebraska, I have no intention of getting smelly either. :) However I do live in a rather large forest, and cellulose waste is very abundant here, while good soil for crop production is quite rare. One of the major benefits for ethanol producers to use a methane digester of either type, is the fertilizer and soil that comes from them.
Making ethanol from plants utilizes only certain parts of most plants, and requires growing those plants in the first place. Combining methane production is a very good way to utilize more of the crop, as well as grow more of it in the first place.
What comes out of the digester is a nutrient rich topsoil or a very good fertilizer. Mr Pain's biogas plant ran for 18 months at a time, and provided him with soil for a garden in an area that was not considered useful for agriculture. Take note in the article on how often he had to irrigate his garden in a relatively arid part of France, and the types of crops he was able to grow due to the rich soil he "made" while heating his home.
Considering CO2 is produced when methane and ethanol are burned, and that CO2 is what plants use along with sunlight to make starch, why wouldn't we want to allow those plants to get the CO2 from fermentation and power production? Plants grow much faster, much larger, and produce better with the addition of CO2.
The benefits from methane production can outweigh the added effort considerably, and it can also be used to lower the cost of producing fuel dramatically. It is out there, all you need to do is collect it. Currently we are working on methods of collection that are relatively inexpensive and technically simple so that almost anyone can utilize this abundant powerful resource.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on -
Hey Thumpin455
Have you tried this yet? I experimented with it last summer and had poor results. Mr. Pain used shredded, not chipped, brush. My chipper makes great chips but I couldn't get them to decompose fast enough to work properly. Most of my chips are douglas fir branches from thinning my woodlot. Now, I'l admit that I didn't build a mound any where near as large as his but I've never had very good luck composting woodchips. He build a special PTO powered shredder with a great number of blades. My chipper only has a single blade. Like I said, great chips but very poor composting so far.
Please share your experiences and/or suggestions.
Thanks
Hugh
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on -
Good questions Hugh.. I'll tell you what I know, as well as what I think. What I think is sometimes useful.
Smaller particles are better, water content is important, it cant be too wet, nor can it be dry. Size does matter with this, if you don't have enough insulation to hold the heat in, you will get a very small return. Hay bales catch fire because they are tightly packed and wet, to achieve enough heat it has to be larger than a hay bale simply because you cant pack it tight enough. Pain used a 1.5" tube inside a compost pile 9ft high by 16ft wide in a circular pattern. They packed the biomass down with the pressure of one person stamping it with their feet, while wetting it for moisture. The reason his works is the size, its enough to retain the heat needed by the microbes, but loose enough that it wont catch fire.
Concerning the size of the biomass, think about pulping potatoes or milling corn for alcohol, if you use large chunks the yeast will have a tough time getting enough to eat. Increase the surface area available to the microbes by making the pieces smaller and they can get to it easier to do their job. The same principle works in a still, the rocks, marbles, or packing creates more surface area for vapors to condense than does the sides of a simple pot still. So the size of the particles matters, too big and you wont generate enough heat because they take too long to eat it, too small and packed too tightly, it might catch fire. I think the possibility of fire is rather low unless its very tightly packed and very green when composted.
If I can get a truck from the father in law, we plan to set up a rectangle shaped plant and see if we can heat the 42'x36' shop with it. I need the truck to get sawdust from the local mill, I figure we will need two or three loads with his truck. The plant will be roughly 30' long, at least 18' wide, and as high as I can pile it. Rather than flexible tubing, we will use PVC in 10' lengths and 5' lengths connected with 90 degree fittings on the ends. Its somewhat cheaper this way, since the price of the pipe is 1/3 that of Pex. Inside that will be two 55 gallon drums, welded together at the bottom, inside the rectangle made by the PVC to produce methane.
Sawdust is dried, but we have an abundance of snow right now, so moisture shouldn't be a problem if we can spread snow with the layers of sawdust. This summer/fall we will build others with grass clippings and wood chips run through the wood chipper two or more times and see how they work. Even if the sawdust doesn't work for producing heat, I will still be able to use whats left after it sits for a year or two, and I really need the soil that will come out of it. So for me, its a win win even if it doesn't work for one thing. Yes the rocky sandy acidic soil we have here is so bad for growing things that rotted sawdust will be a huge improvement. I can grow pine or spruce trees anywhere, but anything else takes some work. Same goes for grass clippings or wood chips. I need the compost almost as much as I need the heat, but I have other solutions for heat, whereas I cant afford the other solutions for poor soil.
The idea behind all of this work by myself and significant other is to see what works, and what doesn't, so others can use the information to decide if they can utilize methane with what they have available. Quite simply I have little else better to do, and I have the room. $200 in supplies to find out one way or another is a small investment, particularly if one works well. If I didn't spend the money/time on this, I would spend it on firewood or car parts and nobody else would benefit from those. :)
Now to get the truck and go pick up the PVC I ordered...
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for the info. I figured that the scale of the bio plant has a lot to do with my failed experiment. I just don't think it will scale down very well. 40 tons of wood chips makes for quite a large pile. I first heard of Jean Pain and his techniques Feb, 2008. The links you sent for the video were very helpful. I had downloaded the same video a year ago but it didn't have the english subtiles. They were very helpful. I've transcribed the subtitles so I can review the info without watching the video again. Spekaing of videos, Steve Spence has a 3 hour video of Al "The Methane Man" Butan that was filmed a few years back. I don't recall Steve's website but you can find it if you search for it. I'm in the process of transcribing that one too.
I'd love to hear more as your project develops. It sounds quite ambitious but it seems like you've done your homework.
Good luck and please keep us posted.
Hugh
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on
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Hugh I should have one going sometime in the next month. I found flexible pipe at Lowes in a 1" diameter that will cost me only $200 to buy rather than $600 for Pex, or $400 for PVC. The store just opened and the employees dont know to hide when I walk in like they do at Menards. If anyone finds other sources for flexible plastic pipe, please post it here. I am not advocating either store, just mentioning where I found it.My sources are limited here, small town, rather remote, etc. Menards never got the PVC in so its a good thing I didnt pay them up front for it. :) Miscommunications happen, saves me money anyway. :)
So the only thing standing in my way is getting a couple dump truck loads of wood chips or sawdust. We wont have any grass clippings until later this summer. I have talked to a couple landscapers in the area and they are willing to bring me the grass clippings rather than pay to dump them at the landfill, so we should be able to get some idea of what grass can do with the Jean Pain method. I have to wait until the trucks are legal again, and that wont be until next month at the very earliest. If my father in law cant get it done by the 15th, I will just load up the ol F150 and make as many trips as I need to, one way or another it will happen. It has to work or I cant afford to make fuel, and it will be another year before I am off the oil completely.
There is no shortage of interest around here, but nobody wants to lend a hand or pay for anything until they have seen it working. I dont blame them really, I am the same way about most things. So getting this working is the main priority before the snow comes back this fall.
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on
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I have the tubing, I have the wood chips, I built a methane tank from two 55 gallon drums, and its halfway done. The methane tank is a regular drum with the top cut out, the top had a removable top and I cut the bottom out. Welded them together to make a 110 gallon tank with a lid.
We got 21 yards of green wood chips from one of the tree services here, they dropped them off while on a job. Usually they have to pay to get rid of them, or find someone who wants them for landscaping or whatnot. This is another way to use them, and there is no shortage of wood chips around here. We got the first load last week, and the last load 4 days later. In that time, the piles have been building heat and are already steaming while we fill the wheelbarrows to move it. I dont have access to anything larger to move it, and the wheelbarrows seem to work pretty well, if a bit slow.
There is already 500 feet of tubing buried in the pile, we have to finish the last 100ft, fill the methane tank with chips and water, then bury it with a few feet of chips above it. My welder died while doing the seam for the barrels, so I have to figure out how to tap the barrel without it, or there will be nowhere for the methane to go and no way to collect it, that would be bad. Otherwise it will be ready to heat water in a couple days. We still have the problem if getting the tubing across the road and into the shop for heat, and if I can get the backhoe down here we can handle that easily in a couple hours. I havent run the tubing around the shop yet, and the shop is a complete mess from getting ready to do that. One of the last things to be done is getting the water tanks connected, they provide a greater volume of water because it will be a relatively closed system rather than pumping ground water through it like Mr Pain did.
The temps here have been in the 30s already, highs today in the low 40s and it snowed the last two days but didnt collect on the ground. The snow showing up kicked me in high gear for the projects, I have a lot of things to do and time isnt on my side. Its tough to dig cattails when they are under 6 feet of snow. The setback we had in June put us behind on everything this year, and I am just now getting caught up again.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for the update. I've not had time to get my tests going so I'm very interested in your results. Could you take a closeup photo of the chips along with something to show the size and shape.
Please keep us posted.
Hugh
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on
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The sizes in this batch varies from sawdust to chunks of branches with more than a few leaves thrown in. It was snowing while we did the last part, if it isnt raining or snowing at least that much when I finish it, I am pretty sure I will need to add water.
I'll take some close up pics of the size tomorrow if I can get a couple other things done. I would rather have it shredded but that isnt within my means at this point, so I will figure out how to make it work with what I have available.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I admire your attitude, "make it work with what you have". I tend put things off until I have everything I need so lots of things never get done. Someday I plan on attending the local chapter of Procrastinators Anonymous but I don't think anyone ever got around to establishing one. :-)
Seriously, I appreciate the effort you're putting into this. Mr. Pain found that shredded branches were best but I know that people have successfully composted wood chips. Depending on how your experiment turns out you may need to add a bit of accelerant to the chips to hasten the composting process. Some intensive gardeners like Jeavons (?) layers biologically active top soil into his compost piles while others "season" their piles with fresh compost.
Good luck with your project.
Hugh
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on
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If I wait until I have everything I need to do it the way everyone else does it, I would never get anything done. In my case poverty coupled with necessity inspires creativity and resourcefulness.
If I could afford to buy all the stuff I need to make ethanol fuel, I wouldnt have found other ways to heat my home/shop and I wouldnt be working on a way to turn that 140F water into electricity. A resort owner in Alaska has invented a way to use 160F water from geothermal wells to make electricity. His scale will power 250 homes with a generator that fits on a flatbed truck. I just need to design and build one to provide my house and shop with power. Thus I am going to learn about refrigeration this winter, reversing the process can power a turbine to spin a generator.
Finding a better way doesnt always involve throwing money at it, but it would be nice to have enough money to buy simple things. :)
One thing I have is time, within reason. I can wait a few months for it to start working well, I have other sources of heat if needed. From what I have seen already in the 7 yard piles we started with, there is no lack of heat and they have only been sitting a week. On a 34F day we had well over 100F temp just 6 inches from the surface of a small pile. Add water and a slightly more densely packed pile with more weight above it and the temp should come up nice.
Also we have found a radiant heat system that can be installed in an existing building over a wood or concrete floor, and of course I am working on a way to do the same thing less expensively with what I have laying around. The floors in my house are unfinished so its the perfect test bed for the idea. Three birds with one stone, insulation, heating, and something other than plywood to walk on.
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455 on
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Got the wood chips in place a few days ago, working on the plumbing and holding tanks. Tomorrow will probably be digging the trench day so we can get the water across the road to the shop. I think it needs more water in the wood chips at this point, that should get the temps up inside the pile a bit quicker.
Here is reference for the size of the chips. If they need to be smaller then I will have to get a chipper and run them through again for the next one. At this point I am finding out what works and what changes I need to make, and regardless of heat output, I will have some soil in a year or two that I can use to plant a garden.
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Permalink Reply by Thumpin455
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I have an update. Spent the last couple months waiting for winter to arrive and allow me to find out just how much heat I can get. Well its here, and temps have been hovering below 20 the last two weeks, dipping under zero at night. Its prime testing time now and since things like this take time, its been a while since I added anything.
I wasnt able to wet the wood chips while I built the pile, so I added some with a 3" pipe stuck into it later. I know it needs more water to get hotter, but right now the snow is melting off the top portion and steam is rising from it so I wont add any quite yet. Might put more snow on top since its melting and that would provide moisture and its everywhere now. We will get plenty more snow in the coming months and I like to use what is available naturally so I will wait for a bit more snow before I start running a hose out there in the snow. As of yet I havent finished plumbing the shop for hot water, but everything is in place. I need a couple connections for the tank but that can wait until I know its hot enough.
This one has 21 yards of chips in it, my neighbor and I are planning on building a 100+ yard plant next year to see if we can heat his shop with it as well as a larger version for my shop. We are also going to bury a water tank inside his plant because he doesnt need methane for anything at this point. The current one is a pilot project to figure things out, and so far its doing that quite well for me. Im not relying on it for heat or methane at this point, and if it is still too small or too dry, then that is part of the learning experience. In January I have more car work to do and I need heat for that, so I will probably see if I can jump start things with more water if it isnt making enough heat for me by the 10th or so. I will also get a thermometer with a probe so I can find out what the core temps are and figure out more things about what is happening in there.
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