I will believe the Saudis don't see any upcoming problems with Ghawar when they cancel one of their projects due to low oil prices. If they continue to be full steam ahead with increasing their capacity then I think they are aware that Ghawar may not be as robust in 5 years time as they would like us to believe.
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 403 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:26 am Post subject: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Fertilize
Has anyone here heard of Jean Pain?
I've recently obtained a copy of his book "Another Kind of Garden" and it seems revolutionary. He managed to devise a continuous system for utilising the composting process to product gas for combustion (transport), heating for his house, fuel for his stove, hot water, thermal warmth for his greenhouses totally on the cheap.
This is futuristic stuff. Basically he creates big 50 ton piles of compost that 'burn' at 60 degrees C (140f) for 18 months straight, providing all of the above mentioned benefits.
Quote:
This vegetable cocktail, Pain explains, made of tree limbs and pulverized underbrush, is a compost, much like the pile of decaying organic matter that people build in their gardens, using food scraps and leaves. Buried inside the 50-ton compost, he says, is a steel tank with a capacity of four cubic metres. It is three-fourths full of the same compost, which has first been steeped in water for two months. The tank is hermetically sealed, but is connected by tubing to 24-truck-tyre inner tubes, banked nearby in piles. The tubes serve as a reservoir for the methane gas produced as the compost ferments.
"Once the gas is distilled, washed through small stones in water -- and compressed," Pain explains, "we use it to cook our food, produce our electricity and fuel our truck." He says that it takes about 90 days to produce 500 cubic metres of gas -- enough to keep Ida's two ovens and a three-burner stove going for a year. Leading to a room behind the house, he shows me the methane-fuelled internal combustion engine that turns a generator, producing 100 watts every hour. This charges an accumulator battery, which stores the current, providing all the Pains need to light their five-room house.
Using a new, exciting and amazingly simple technique, this self-taught scientist may be helping to solve the world's energy crisis. more...
The composting process almost fuels Pain's entire farm system. This is genius stuff! His source material is cleared scrub that is otherwise an annual fire hazard.
I understand the book was self published, and so it's very rare, but it's extremely forward thinking stuff.
Jean Pain (1930 - 1981) was a French innovator who developed a compost based bio energy system that produced 100% of his energy needs. He heated water to 60 degrees celsius at a rate of 4 litres a minute which he used for washing and heating. He also distilled enough methane to run an electricity generator, cooking elements, and power his truck. This method of creating usable energy from composting materials has come to be known as Jean Pain Composting, or the Jean Pain Method.
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 403 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:06 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
It's just amazing Ludi
He ran his truck, tractor and chippers and car on methane gas derived from compost (apparently just a simple conversion). He heated his home with hot water through column heaters around the house. Ran his stove burners with wood gas from the compost process.
Just imagine getting your hot water from a compost pile, then having 50 tons of compost to grow your garden once it finished cooking!
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:08 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
Yeah, I find all that sort of thing to be very exciting! I wish I were more mechanically minded. Luckily, my husband is, and is getting more interested in these alternatives. Right now he's into designing a PV powered small car, though. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:12 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
The downside I see in compost-based energy production is the need to gather, move, and prepare large quantities of material. That's what would keep me from getting into it, not having any tractors, etc to start with. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 403 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:19 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
This stuff is really great because it's within the grasp of individuals. It's not a mass algae growing system swimming in a kilometer square vat of sludge cooking 'fuel' of the suburbanites to drive to office towers.
It's the kind of thing that will be actually doable on a small local scale. During energy decent these ideas will be invaluable so that we can continue to benefit from some of the technological developments that actually made sense instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Just imagine the personal sense of calm when running your own house off compost and not being electric grid vulnerable...
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:22 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
I think it's very much doable by individuals or communities. But one does need to start with some power equipment - probably chainsaw, tractor, wood chipper. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 403 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:24 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
Ludi wrote:
The downside I see in compost-based energy production is the need to gather, move, and prepare large quantities of material. That's what would keep me from getting into it, not having any tractors, etc to start with.
I'm looking into a plant called Tagasaste or tree lucerne for this purpose. It's a small fast growing tree that has nitrogen fixing capacities (for soil improvement). It also provides feed for live stock, and can be composted very easily.
I just bought 50 of these trees for $1.50 each. Imagine the biomass I'll have in 4 years. Even on a small scale these tress are extremely useful. Planted next to fruit trees they help correct the soil.
Cuttings of brush could be made by hand and composted in large piles.
Joined: Jan 02, 2008 Posts: 403 Location: out dispatching ronan...
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:27 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
Ludi wrote:
I think it's very much doable by individuals or communities. But one does need to start with some power equipment - probably chainsaw, tractor, wood chipper.
You're certainly right about that. In my grandfathers time, all of the farmers would meet at each others properties and do the plowing and harvesting of each successive property together to speed the work.
Imagine what could be done with 10 or 20 able men, a couple of weeks of hard work and home brewed beers for the end of the day.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:24 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
Hagakure_Leofman wrote:
I just bought 50 of these trees for $1.50 each.
Be careful, they are considered invasive in some places. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
Ludi wrote:
I think it's very much doable by individuals or communities. But one does need to start with some power equipment - probably chainsaw, tractor, wood chipper.
Ludi wrote:
The downside I see in compost-based energy production is the need to gather, move, and prepare large quantities of material. That's what would keep me from getting into it, not having any tractors, etc to start with.
16 people working for 2 hours to build the first pile of about 12 cubic yards, in one class i took.
particle size is important - the heating up won't occur without small particles. e.g. a stick 1 1/4" diameter x 12" long would make it through the 1 1/2" "pre-compost" screening.
the process also uses a lot of water. we had 2 teams competing at one point & i realized the team i was on was "water constrained." so i started bringing over extra large buckets of water on a farm wagon.
those 12 cubic yards reduce to about 2 cubic yards. so you would need to have a flexible hose to bring the water pipes to the compost pile. once the pile is built with the water pipes intact, as the material beneath the pipes composts, it reduces in volume. so if you do this in a basement or the garage, it helps to have a floor drain.
i scratched my head & wondered, where does the 10 cubic yards go ? back into the atmosphere, it's gotta be. _________________ http://www.LASIK-Flap.com/ ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:19 pm Post subject: Re: COMPOST! Source for Fuel, Heating, Hot Water & Ferti
it seems to me to be a 50-ton compost providing one household (or just one person?) with energy. How much needs to be added to the compost weekly to keep it going? Or does it run down and a new one is started? How often?
A nice niche application but nothing scalable. Compost energy comes from breaking down the stored energy in organic matter. You can not get out more energy than what is stored by the plants in the first place using sun light energy . It is a different process that burning it in a fire, but I doubt you get more energy back. Burning is better with dry matter, decaying in compost is better with moist matter.
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