Homade Methane

[Taylortractornut]

Ive always been intrigued by homemade fuels since I was little hearing about whiskey and other fuel sources. about 10 or 12 years ago I hear my neighbor Gerald talking about a plant in Wisconsin that he serviced lift trucks for. It had been built to power itself with fuel and 2 large distillate powered motors that were 12 cylinders each. They rangenerators but during WW2 when all the fuels were rationed the plant faced a major downtim puttin in new power lines. On older immigrant had a meeting and tol them that they could take use of the sewr tunnels under the plant. They pulled a vacuum and bottled this gas off the tops of the sewers and ran the whole plant for free. So recently Ive been experimenting with Methane production and had made several flasks of it. even ran a small motor with it a few seconds. Ive now worked up to one 55 gallon digester. I have to maintain beteen 85 and 95 degrees but in the tank but thats not a problem here. This winter Ill have to run a burner under the drums. I need to find and old divetank compressor now. I use chicken manure which I get at a bargain from a friends poultry barn. The main benefit is I can use the sludge waste as a high quality fertilizer on the garden. Im trying to study what I need to do to run it in my Propane powered 2 ton. I also have a lead on a sweet 3/4 ton Ford service truck from the propane dealer that has a bad transmission.
My Vetrinarian also has a large supply of dog and other animal waste that I m planing to use on another set of digesters That I cant put on my garden but I can use it on my start up tree farm. My uncle travels to China alot on agricultural business and has showed me a few pictures of Chinese walking tractors run off of home brewed methane. Its stored in rubber lined bags and in truck inner tubes. Also in other conties methane gas is collected off of septic tanks to heat house holds and cook with.

 

[Renze]

There is a big hype in the Netherlands and Germany about Bio gas and digestioning of manure, mixed with roadside grass and any other organic waste. there is big subsidy on it and even without that it is worth looking into.

The Dutch and German are most advanced in manure co-digestioning (co-digestioning because they use manure as a base but digest it together with roadside grass, unused silage, garden waste etcetera)
http://www.biogas.nl/content/view/32/

http://www.ees.adelaide.edu.au/pharris/biogas/beginners.html

There is also a big plant in Sweden, digesting chipped wood. I've seen that on TV but cant tell you more about it.

In certain areas in the Northern Netherlands, some farmers used kettles on the drainage ditches, on certain places bog gases come out of the ground from the boggy subsoil.

 

[earthface]

There is a large cattle feeder operation in eastern Oregon that makes meathane from their cattle waste. They run some big generators and sell the power back to the power grid. Then bag the soild waste blended with sawmill waste, for sale at the graden stores for garden use. No more waste cattle manure. Which was a BIG envirmental problem before.

 

[dirt clod]

Hmm....... maybe i could some how mount a methane collector to my truck seat and drive for free. just would have to stop and refuel with mexican food and chili.

 

[Ron25]

Here's a USA company into BioGas..

http://www.intrepid21.com/

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Around here, dairy's have really been buying into the methane digester technology.

http://www.localnews8.com/video/3443546.html

 

[Taylortractornut]

Renze Im reading alot online about a man in England that also made his own chicken waste methane named Harold Bate lots of info on him. Also Jean pain had an interestin set up that used a large tank digestor in a 50 ton compost pile to heat the digestor tank and had a coil wrapped around the tank. he pumped well water around this coil to heat his house water also. I have access to all the compost I can stand from a log yard. I hope I can get my digital cam back this week and Ill take a few pics of my set up just a few barrels and some hose. It takes about a week to get good and started. Im making a small grass waste grinder to aid in production of composting material. Dad and I are talking to a company about doing methane checks for the small landfill we manage.

 

[Bill Barrett]

I'm in the mechanical contracting buisness, and always wanted to mess with methane. What makes me nervous is sometime you have a heck of a time to get equipment to run on natural gas or LP, let a lone gas you have no control over the BTU content or pressure. Any ideas or links you've seen?

 

[earthface]

PS: Check out some of the OLD Mother Earth News magazine they cover this subject a lot. I think most of the old articles are online.

Mother Earth Archives
http://www.motherearthnews.com/mothers_library/

Another Article
http://www.habmigern2003.info/biogas/methane-digester.html

Digestor
http://www.valleyairsolutions.com/

Small units
http://www.epa.gov/agstar/resources/smldigesters.html

 

[Taylortractornut]

Actually running it is easy on a gas burner but compressing it takes 1100 psi to change it liquid. Thats why I need a scuba tank compressor. All thats needed to run it in a dual fuel gas set up is and extra port tapped into the carb with a tubular jet.