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- What do you have to say about Dave's book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas"?
- Would love to read it
- About Me:
- We moved from Belgium to NZ two years ago, for adventure and to escape the crowds.
I struck on the concept of Peak Oil in NZ and became involved in Transition Towns.
It's energy that keeps us moving and it's positive energy that moves us in the right direction.
- I am located in:
- Kerikeri
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Still learning about how to use this ning site so I just read the message you sent today after I sent the previous....Anyway thanks for your reply. We were asking Wolf how to get ahold of you. He says you have stepped up to be the Driver of the project. Great to know there are existing raupo owners willing to get involved. Have you built constructed reedbeds before and if so, the vegetated bed system or the surface water system?
Where we are at: Both MAF and MfE are encouraging David to go for the grant but there are still many holes in it that we are trying to work through.
The meeting with the Reed Bed contractor (Uly) was enlightening—the typical ARC way of construction human sewage effluent through vegetative bed flow (gravel bed) systems doesn’t work for harvesting raupo and we don’t know if they will allow surface water systems like they do in the States.
Have found simple engineering drawings for the modified potato harvester and modified oyster harvester depending on if the beds are harvested with or without water but they are on microfiche and I have to go into Auckland to get them and their reports printed out
University researchers harvesting data is quite different from what Blume reports – only 2 to 5x not 10 as Blume reported. Or at least I haven’t been able to find any documented research supporting 10x corn ethanol production with raupo
Could be very energy intensive to produce raupo ethanol—must be harvested, washed, (transported) mashed, (dried optional) ground fine, cooked then treated with acids and or enzymes and then heated to maintain temperatures for yeasts and then distilled. So there are couple more steps for raupo than for corn. Corn once dried keeps and used over a long period of time—not sure about raupo rhizomes.
NZ raupo is Typha orientalis which is different from T latifolia or T angustifolia in the USA. Have found only one source of data for yields of T orientalis and its wild marsh, no yield data for cultivated reed beds. T. latifolia is classed as a noxious weed here in NZ
A big application for raupo beds may be urban storm water detention ponds actually need to be cleaned out. Typha rhizomes collect heavy metals
A lot of work has been done by NIWA on constructed wetlands for dairy effluent, and by the Land Treatment Collective (now part of Scion) and of course by waste water engineers. However, could not find any information for constructed wetlands for raupo production. Not much in the way of techniques for harvesting vegetation growing in the wetlands either
David's direct email is dbkettlelimited@slingshot.co.nz.
Kind regards,
Betsy Kettle