I found some interesting reading here.
What made me wonder is that this technology is rather widespread over here, especially the use of methane for heating purposes. Even small farms use covered manure heaps and use the methane produced by them for small water heaters or the like. In bigger setups they use gas engines up to 50 kW to create electricity and the residual heat for heating purposes. A main advantage is that the manure is getting better fertilizer in that process, less root burn and is also properly disinfected. The farmers do profit a lot- a: electricity bill, b: less fertilizer to be bought c less heating oil. Usually these setups recover the investment within 1.5 - 2 years, with the oil price rising even faster.
Just thought this might be of interest.

AlpineRAM

 

Yeah, they are also able to collect the gasses as they are produced at landfills. The prices they charge for dumping, you think they would all be on board already.

 

No surprise there. Europe has less land mass so they must be smart with their waste. Unlike here when they dump first and think about it later.

 

Well I think it's some great system that even small farmers can use. The cheapest setup I saw used a garden hose, a big plastic sheet some stones, a homemade pump and a device to avoid the flame going back in the methane line. This was connected to a second hand gas water heater. Some hours of tweaing later- free hot water all day long. Costs for complete system- about 200? and one day of working and drinking beer. Costs were offset after 2 months.
AlpineRAM

 

I work at a waste water treatment plant and typically you capture the methane from the digesters to run boilers and generators for power. its not a total loss, however the methane can produce problems if its dirty so to say, then you need scrubbers or other equipt that gets pretty pricey. Wish I could bottle it and run my CTD on it, nothin like a freeby

 

Hehe- the good thing about getting the methane from manure is that it's really clean- waste water treatment is a bear. For the small appliances we run over here we just pull the methane through water in fine bubbles. For the bigger stuff running power gens etc it gets a bit trickier, but over here we've got a good knowledge base on that stuff. (I'm working on some of it for a company that makes this stuff in the bigger scale like 250kW up)
The fun thing is that if you build it really small you can have the power grid just for service downtimes of your equipment, and you get paid a little per kWh that you feed into the grid. We do use the cooling water of the gens engine and a heat exchanger for the exhaust to recover as much heat as possible for heating rooms and water and have lots of electricity for free. Since the engine needs cooling all the year round and the waste heat of the gens engine can be diverted we usually install heated swimming pools- labeled flat area evaporation coolers for our IRS.

AlpineRAM

 

sounds like your doin it right, not just wastin it, were scheduled to install a microturbine for juice soon, but rumor has it there are some issues on maint etc. we would run it on methane then use the heat generated to heat our digesters. we also will be upgrading our stand by gen from 250kw to 500 or so ,or possibly 2 units to cover some new equiptment. amongst power issues, this area is running out of water. The feds have said to build some 8k more dwellings by 2010 or so or they will yank all federal hwy improvment money. but there are no utilities to cover the people who`ll but the homes. its out of control here. we need the toilet to the tap program like LA has.

 

We've made the experience that a: there are maintenance issues with microturbines on methane, and b- microturbines are very inefficient. We're usually using converted gas engines if we want some heat and if it's for electricity we'll use diesel engines that run on bio and are co-fed with methane.
Why do you need to heat your digesters?

AlpineRAM

 

Hey Alpine,
I don't want to hi jack this but here is the way it is in the US of A. as we say.
If I put a pile of garbage out in the back yard and did what was necessary to "ferment" it and extract the methane for usefull purposes, the Home Owner's Assoc (HOA) would be all over me for making a mess in our community. Not to mention the "authorities". Crap they even complained when I change oil in my CTD. I've had 3 complaints because my TIG welder interfers with the dam TV. They don't like it when I cut metal out in the driveway with my torch. My 41 ****** streetrod is an non licensed car and cann't be left out side long enough to clean out the shop, I have a 60 foot pitching mound my son and I use for baseball across the front yard,decorated with flowers (an eyesore)....on and on. Looks like I need to move on. You know what?? we can't even vote on what the HOA rules are!!! The GD construction/builder controlls this. Yet we pay outrageous prices for homes. Not only that but we gotta pay into the HOA. Are we dumb or what.
Here is how dumb I am..last week a guy came over with his busted 4 wheeler and asked me to weld a busted part back on it. Now this guys wife is on the board of dir. of the HOA and is a "voice" so to speak..hates me too. Being a nice guy I fixed his d..m 4 wheeler so he can continue raping the land. Do you think the b..d would at least offer to pay me a bit for my effort and use of equipment....h..l no . thanks and out the dam door.
BTW I spent 3 weeks in your beautiful country a few years ago. Met some of friendliest people in Europe. A guy who owned a pub even catered to my rediculously finiky appetite..burger, biggest basket of fries you ever saw and tall beer almost every day.
bentwings

 

Well bentwings, helpfulness and gratitude are two sisters that do rarely meet as we say.

I know that setting up biogas plants can be a bit of a problem in the neighbourhoods, same with doing work on the truck etc. I'm living in a single appartment right in the middle of a industrial complex.
You can build a small biogas reactor in your garage and no one would see it. There's also no smell if you do it right.
If you ever care to visit again I'd like to show you some other foods too. (and have an emergency burger with fries at hand )

AlpineRAM