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Parrothead

Anyone have any experience with methane or bio-gas production?

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Parrothead

Some recent talk in the Black Soldier Fly threads, regarding the larvae consuming manure got me thinking about the possibility of producing my own methane, to run a generator at the farm. Free fuel would be nice. Power cost would be as cheap as chips, because of it. 

 

I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with methane or bio-gas production, to run motors / generators.

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Blackeye

I made some just this morning. 

 

 

On a more serious note, an old farmer I used to know had a couple air-cooled VWs (a microbus and a beetle) he ran exclusively on methane harvested from sheep-sh*t. I was a young fella at the time but I recall him explaining the process a few times - it involved a series of 55 gallon drums and a repurposed refrigerator pump to compress the gas at the end. I think it was 2-3 drums, and he shovelled the poo into at least one - I'm not sure if the process was a series of drums or if they were in parallel to just add capacity. 

 

He was one of the most legitimately interesting people I've ever known. 

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Parrothead

I made some just this morning. 

 

TMI

 

 

 

On a more serious note, an old farmer I used to know had a couple air-cooled VWs (a microbus and a beetle) he ran exclusively on methane harvested from sheep-sh*t. I was a young fella at the time but I recall him explaining the process a few times - it involved a series of 55 gallon drums and a repurposed refrigerator pump to compress the gas at the end. I think it was 2-3 drums, and he shovelled the poo into at least one - I'm not sure if the process was a series of drums or if they were in parallel to just add capacity.
 
My thought is pigs. Not a lot to do with pig shite in the province, as far as I know. But, if I have enough of them - an appropriate number yet to be determined, they can keep a generator going 24 / 7 / 365 for us.
 
 

 

He was one of the most legitimately interesting people I've ever known.
 
I know. I know. You don't have to tell me. I'm another one. 

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andy

Interesting subject! If you have the animals to produce. A very good bi-product. (if you want your hands in shit every day). But obviously you would hire someone to do the dirty work. One other thing! Khmer's don't use half the products available to them. Most will not gather their own animal wast, they would prefer to buy pesticides. And don't forget LPG is the cheapest fuel in this part of the world.

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dicey eye

Wonder if my putrid burrito farts count as methane fuel?

Or possibly rocket fuel!!!

Edited by dicey eye

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Bill H

All kidding aside, yes I know about it and had a small scale generator for my pig manure on my ranch.  Diesel engines run well on it, but...big but...it is high in acid and you must filter the gas.  A good generator produces the fuel in stages in a very low oxygen environment, I made mine from concrete (it was a horizontal design).  Go to the Mother Earth News archive, they have published several good articles on this subject.  You might also look online.  It's not hard to do, but it is not easy to do it well.  The solids output from the methane generator makes very good fertilizer, so you really get the most efficient use of your input fuel.  Manure works well, but any organic material can be used.  I have no idea how the fly larvae would work, but I'd be willing to bet a little time on Duck Duck Go, would net you a slew of information.

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Parrothead

 

 

All kidding aside, yes I know about it and had a small scale generator for my pig manure on my ranch.  Diesel engines run well on it, but...big but...it is high in acid and you must filter the gas.

 

Do you remember how many pigs it took to produce enough waste and how many kilowatts the generator was, the waste ran? Room for the pigs isn't an issue. We can also eat them and raise more. Just trying to see if it would work to our benefit to do something like this. 

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Parrothead

 

 


And don't forget LPG is the cheapest fuel in this part of the world.

 

Will probably have LPG on site as well. Trouble is, the largest tanks I have seen so far, are the tall skinny cylinders. They don't have large LPG tanks like we have in the states. Or, if they do, I have yet to see any of them. And, I have never seen an LPG truck similar to the ones that used to deliver to our home.

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Bill H

We kept between 50-100 feeder pigs at any given time.  They produced more poop than the generator would process, but I was just fooling around with the concept to see if it would work.  This was in Montana and in the winter when the temps got down below -20F lots of things began to freeze.  My original idea was to use the gas to heat the growing house in the winter, but the cold weather seriously disrupted our output when we needed the gas the most.  Pigs put out a lot of poop, but you need an effective way to collect it.  Let them run on dirt would make collecting the poop very difficult.  We used slotted floors, so the poop fell down (or was washed down) and went into a sump, we then pumped it out of the sump and into the generator after running the mixer in the sump to get everything broken down.  Ideally, you want it fairly thick like cream, but it's tricky when you use water to wash it through the floors and collection troughs.

 

If your pigs are free range, I can't see how you could effectively collect the poop without getting a bunch of soil in it.  So slotted floors would be best, but free range pigs taste better, are happier and have fewer disease problems.  Like most things, you take from one end you give back to the other.

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andy

Will probably have LPG on site as well. Trouble is, the largest tanks I have seen so far, are the tall skinny cylinders. They don't have large LPG tanks like we have in the states. Or, if they do, I have yet to see any of them. And, I have never seen an LPG truck similar to the ones that used to deliver to our home.

Ok! Is this correct. What gas containers do they use in the many "only LPG filling station's around Cambodia". And also what tanker's deliver the gas.

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