Fancy making your own off grid gas supply?

[Robert Clark]

Saw this online

Converts food and animal waste into gas 

 

https://www.homebiogas.com/

 

 

[andyscotland]

Intriguing idea, though with a recommended input of 12 litres of waste a day providing 12 litres of liquid fertiliser (a day) I wonder how useful it is for UK domestic? Can't see us producing anything like that volume, or having the time to cut back the jungle that amount of fertiliser would create. Presumably at lower volumes it might not produce enough gas to be useful?

[SteamyTea]

There was a guy from Dorset, over at the other place, who got convinced to fit a home AD plant.

I met the 3 people that were responsible for selling, designing and installing it.  It was never gong to work, and to the best of my knowledge, it never did.

All I can say is that £50,000 would have bought a lot of natural gas, or PV, or even a decent windturbine.

[Jeremy Harris]

52 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There was a guy from Dorset, over at the other place, who got convinced to fit a home AD plant.

I met the 3 people that were responsible for selling, designing and installing it.  It was never gong to work, and to the best of my knowledge, it never did.

All I can say is that £50,000 would have bought a lot of natural gas, or PV, or even a decent windturbine.

 

 

I've spoken to him some time ago, at the same time that I was having a bit of a run in with the person promoting the system (who's still misusing images of our house), and he's written off all that wasted money and concluded that the thing would never have worked.  IIRC, the original idea and design wasn't by the chap that was proclaiming it as his, but was Australian, I think.  Pity that the chap promoting the product here is one of those who get convinced by the merits of something without doing a fundamental check as to how much energy there was available in waste in the first place.  IIRC, this thing (had it worked) would have needed masses more waste than would ever have been produced by a single house.

[Onoff]

My Gurkha friends grew up using a local Nepalese design. Mum would cook on the gas produced and they did their homework by gaslight. They had buffalo though! Seems it was a ritual Mum would muck out the animals and feed the biogas plant. Interesting that using human waste was considered taboo. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Onoff

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I've spoken to him some time ago

I spoke to him too, right after I met the people responsible for it.

It was obvious that they were chancers.

They also had an over parity fuel cell.  So that is alright.

[Onoff]

(Posted previously):

 

Why waste this "brown gold"?

 

https://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/other-renewables/biogas-generator-zm0z14aszrob

 

2 to 3 cows required here:

 

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_nepal.html

[SteamyTea]

For the last 20 plus years, some sewage works have diverted 'our' waste into AD plants.

Much better to do it at scale.

Energy production is is always better when large.

[Onoff]

If I had the time and money if have a go at a biogas plant. Figure my plot's geography lends itself. Being on a slope I'd site an outside WC or garden room at the top of the slope feeding the gas plant. The same top corner is also where most of our garden waste goes so I could have a feed into the plant too for green stuff. I've read 50/50 brown to green is optimum. The extra "brown"; my neighbour has ducks, chickens, horses and dogs. I'm sure they'd appreciate a crap chute set into the fence! ?

As the slope runs East down to West some solar thermal panels on the South side would keep thinks warm. All gravity fed from the top of the slope. Gas pipe down to the house and/or back to the garden room to a boiler or gennie. 

 

 

 

 

[andyscotland]

Yeah in a rural area and with WC waste I could see it being viable for something relatively cheap (which I assume this is, given it looks to be a posh duffel bag with some valves). And especially if compared to bottled gas. City centre kitchen bin and lawn not so much...

[PeterW]

AD plants are very fickle beasts, and need to be fed very regularly to constantly maintain production. There are a couple of big ones near me and talking to one of the farmers it is controlled very tightly and each load of waste or feed into it is analysed and the temperature and water content varied accordingly. Not sure how this small scale stuff would cope with a weeks holiday or a family christmas...

[Robert Clark]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

My Gurkha friends grew up using a local Nepalese design. Mum would cook on the gas produced and they did their homework by gaslight. They had buffalo though! Seems it was a ritual Mum would muck out the animals and feed the biogas plant. Interesting that using human waste was considered taboo. 

 

I saw something similar on tv once where families in Africa were harvesting bio gas from their latrines. Was a simple concept, just a lid with a hosepipe running to a cooker in the house 

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

AD plants are very fickle beasts

Too true. A friend of mine is a commissioning engineer for AD plants.

It is not a case of just slinging rubbish in an airtight container and leaving t in a warm place.

They can easily be 'poisoned ', give low caloric value gas, and then there is the waste to dispose of. This, in commercial plants, is often toxic, see the Coca Cola case in India to how bad it can be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3096893.stm

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, Robert Clark said:

 

I saw something similar on tv once where families in Africa were harvesting bio gas from their latrines. Was a simple concept, just a lid with a hosepipe running to a cooker in the house 

 

There's a long term project in a number of African countries, costs aprrox USD600 per install. 

 

http://www.ecreee.org/sites/default/files/event-att/20130423_wacca_presentation.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjagPD_24TkAhWLTBUIHeERA94QFjARegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw3Y5SwBqfPIevajy6hfhNt0&cshid=1565866738131

 

I've read elsewhere that bringing a similar scheme to rural India, where it would benefit the population hugely, is hampered again by the whole taboo, "job for the untouchables" thing.