New Energy Source?

VERY interesting link, Winston!

Just wait until the eco kooks find out that my lawn mower grass clippings are producing so much atmospheric methane!

They'll outlaw lawn mowers.

Even corn stalks (pasty) make 6.8 times the methane that cow manure does.

Is rape seed easy to grow? (24x methane of cow manure)

Michael, I agree.

That was just an apples-apples comparison. You can make meaningful quantities of methane with surprisingly little raw material. With a digester using ensilaged grass, water makes up ~92 percent of the raw material. This is a great way to use the 'roof runoff' you have been storing in your rain barrels.

You would need nearly 8 x as much manure to equal the output of a given amount of ensilaged grass, so that is a non- starter anyway, unless you could get it free and someone who *paid you* to transport it to your site.

Here is an article about that from TMEN in 1974:

Say 10 minutes tops, including walking time. My trusty wheelbarrow and square nose shovel would make quick work of that.

My town has a law against removing items placed in a recycling cart. I checked just now.

Grass clippings left in the street are in a legal 'gray area', particularly when they are deposited more than a day before the designated pickup time or any time after the pick up has occurred. There are normally piles on my block that sit for several days, for example. Nobody has been arrested, so far.

We also have laws against medical fraud and practicing medicine without a license. Those aren't investigated, either. :)

Sometimes I re-purpose stuff that I remove from my recycling cart. I'm trusting you to keep this secret, Michael.

I don't have the right tie for a 'perp walk'.

None. You?

--Winston

Hey digest it and burn it for heat instead.

You can tell them you are converting equal amounts to CO2 which is *72 x less potent* as a greenhouse gas.

"Raise your hands and step away from the Murray."

You canola tell if you try, Greegor. :)

--Winston

After the 2008 midwestern floods, many repairable goods like lawn mowers, chain saws, snowblowers, etc. were put out on the boulevards which were almost entirely covered with personal property and building materials. TV news advised that removing items from the boulevards was considered to be LOOTING.

I asked a few people about that and they chalked that up as another one of the many insane things going on amid the chaos.

I never heard of anybody arrested for LOOTING for taking junk off the boulevards.

I did meet a guy who pulled a really nice craftsman chainsaw in a case off a boulevard and cleaned it up to keep.

I think calling such salvage LOOTING was really stupid.

I'd like to see the case file and transcript of somebody charged with LOOTING for that.

I bet if you have a few neighbors with bagger lawn mowers most would gladly let you have their grass clippings to turn into methane.

What kind of residue would be left at the bottom of the reactor after methane production?

Would the residue still be good for compost?

How much methane can you safely store in your back yard?

(...)

I find it easy to put myself in the position of the home(less) owner here. If emergency crews had to put one of my tool boxes in the street to gain access through the garage to rescue me, I would be grateful for the rescue and very unhappy with the guy who walked off with my tools.

I can see a few ways that this could get complicated.

Especially if it reduced their chances of getting a littering ticket. :)

Very stinky green stuff! One of the byproducts is hydrogen sulfide. It is Whiffy.

I was considering a modular approach with dried feedstock sharing the same housing as an activated charcoal filter and a calcium pH controller.

Just add water, shake and put it in a solar heating enclosure. The gas bubbles through the filter which removes most of the nasties. How to recycle the spent housings is left as an exercise for the student. :)

I don't know. Post digested manure *is* composted successfully. This stuff is pretty acidic so it might require neutralization first.

One guy used a standard air compressor to store his methane in gas cylinders at 200 PSI. Answer: Quite a lot. Using it as is would be preferable, though.

These folks change 500 Kg of lunchroom garbage into 100 KW of fuel per day: "

Nifty!

--Winston

Steveaustinlex concluded that biogas would never replace oil.

I agree but that is no reason to ignore biogas. We can exploit biogas in a decentralized manner as part of a larger alternative energy future. This would tend to decrease our dependence on oil.

Today, even.

Also of interest:

--Winston