06 December 2010

Waste-to-energy schemes could save cash - Gazette Live

Nov 30 2010 by Kelley Price, Evening Gazette


GREEN chiefs on Teesside say food waste-to-energy schemes could prove a money saver for cash-strapped councils.


As many as 1,000 energy plants could be built in the UK using Anaerobic Digestion (AD), which uses food and other types of organic waste to produce power.


Last week top Defra minister Lord Henley, who was visiting Teesside, said the Government supported AD.


The following video may be of interest but is not linked to this article.




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In January, industries from manufacturing to construction will attend an event by Wilton-based RENEW and Manufacturing Advisory Service North-east to find out about the opportunities from the emerging sector.


Work on the North-east’s first commercial AD plant will begin in a few weeks, fuelling hopes the scheme will be a springboard for more like it.


Newton Aycliffe company Emerald Biogas will take commercial food waste and turn it into green electricity.


RENEW chiefs claim advances in the technology to produce renewable gas as well as electricity could lead to a revolutionary “closed loop” system for councils, turning waste from kerbside collections into fuel for their fleets.


The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), a cashback scheme that comes into force next year, is also expected to galvanise the industry.


The next step for RENEW is a study with Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Stockton councils to gauge the potential for AD on Teesside.


“The scale we are talking about makes AD plants large enough and too expensive to ship from the continent, so there’s a very real need for local production,” said Peter Walsh, RENEW’s energy manager.


“That means more work for manufacturing, fabrication, installers processing, equipment installation, civil works.


“We want to see much more local content, not importing of technology. Large fabrication structures, tanks, pipework instrumentation - these are all skills and industries that people are familiar with on Teesside.


“There hasn’t been the financial incentives until now - although they’re not as high as we wanted,” he added.


Speaking during his tour of world leading plastics recycling plant Biffa Polymers, Redcar, Lord Henley, who has overall responsibility for UK waste and recycling, said: “We are keen to encourage AD, and we’re working hard with other departments to do what we can.”


Antony Warren, from Emerald Biogas, said: “Landfill tax makes its competitive to take food out of the waste stream for companies.


“We need this to take off, there’s a push from Government and all the marketplace incentives are there to make it happen.”


View the original article here

05 December 2010

Harvest Power Receives Canadian Government Grant to Open First High Solids ... - Business Wire (press release)

Company moves closer to goal of first commercial HSAD facility in Canada


WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Harvest Power, a developer of renewable energy and compost facilities for next-generation organics recycling, today proudly announced that its Fraser Richmond Soil & Fibre facility will receive up to $4 million over two years from the Government of Canada. The funding will be used to finance the construction of the country’s first high-efficiency system for producing renewable energy from food and yard waste.



“We are especially excited by this project because of the incredible potential of HSAD to serve as a fundamental pillar in the North American organic waste management portfolio.”




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Harvest founder and CEO Paul Sellew announced the grant alongside the Honourable Christian Paradis, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, at a ceremony in the Fraser Richmond facility. The grant comes from the Government of Canada’s Clean Energy Fund, which is investing $795 million in clean energy technology development and demonstration over five years.


The project will utilize Harvest’s high solids anaerobic digestion (HSAD) technology, which efficiently biodegrades dry organic waste (such as urban food and yard waste) in a two-stage system that maximizes throughput, system stability and methane concentration in the resulting renewable biogas. The project will divert up to 27,000 tons of food and yard waste per year from landfills.


“Harvest has already made dramatic progress in our goal of becoming the first commercial HSAD facility in Canada, and this grant from the Canadian Clean Energy Fund positions us to achieve that goal in the near future,” said Sellew. “We are especially excited by this project because of the incredible potential of HSAD to serve as a fundamental pillar in the North American organic waste management portfolio.”


“Investments in clean energy technologies are a key part of our balanced approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change,” said Minister Paradis. “Our Government is investing in this project to encourage clean energy innovation and help create high-quality jobs for Canadians.”


The Clean Energy Fund is investing $795 million in clean energy technology development and demonstration over five years. The Government of Canada’s support will help launch nearly 20 projects, including the Fraser Richmond facility, under the renewable and clean energy portion of the Clean Energy Fund, totaling up to $146 million. Three carbon capture and storage projects have also been announced, totaling $466 million from the fund.


Recently named both a 2010 Global Cleantech 100 Company and the “Emerging Company of the Year” by the New England Clean Energy Council, Harvest is rapidly expanding its business and developing new facilities throughout North America.


About Harvest Power


Through innovative technologies and unparalleled industry experience, Harvest is ushering in a new era of organics recycling. Harvest develops, builds, owns and operates state-of-the-art facilities that produce renewable energy and compost from discarded organic materials. Deploying best-in-class technologies, Harvest provides capital for projects and top-tier talent to finance, engineer, construct and operate the facilities. By harnessing the energy and nutrients of organic materials, Harvest enables communities to increase their energy independence, reduce their environmental impact, and harvest valuable resources.


View the original article here

New anaerobic digestion plant opened - Guttridge

A new £9 million anaerobic digestion (AD) plant has been opened in Oxford, it has been revealed.


Organics recycling firm Agrivert has launched the facility, which is capable of processing 45,000 tonnes of waste a year, in Cassington.


The anaerobic digestors will turn food waste into around 2MW of renewable electricity for the National Grid.

Councillor Ian Hudspeth, cabinet member for growth and infrastructure at Oxfordshire county council, expressed his delight at the development.


He said: "This is a fantastic facility that is performing a key role in reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill in Oxfordshire, providing sustainable and renewable electricity for over 4,000 homes.


"The plant will also provide quality fertiliser for local agriculture – a real win-win scenario."


The plant was developed in a joint venture with M&M Skip Hire as part of Agrivert's 20-year contract with Oxfordshire county council.


Typical Guttridge equipment used in the anaerobic digestion industry includes;   View the original article here

04 December 2010

Siemens expands Anaerobic digestion offering - Environmental Expert (press release)

Siemens Water Technologies has acquired the JetMix hydraulic mixing system from Liquid Dynamics. This system agitates sludge within the anaerobic digestion process, optimising digestion and methane production. The latter can be captured and used as energy within a wastewater treatment facility.




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Compared to similar mixing systems, the JetMix system allows operators to schedule mixing times, which can reduce power usage by 60% to 80% without decreasing gas production or negatively affecting volatile solids reduction. Suitable for use in new installations as well as retrofits or upgrades for a variety of municipal and industrial applications, the JetMix system complements Siemens' existing line of equipment and solutions for anaerobic digestion.


The JetMix system creates an effective mixing volume rating of 95% or more, even with internal piping and roof support columns. The system uses powerful jets to maintain or resuspend solids. Nozzles mounted inside the tank can be rotated 360 degrees to create a flow pattern that virtually eliminates solids settling, reduces energy requirements, and makes dead spots obsolete. A top nozzle effectively controls scum and grease as well as foam and other floatables.


The modular design of the JetMix system allows for various pumps and nozzles to be used in combination to meet a wide range of application requirements and load fluctuations. Viscosity, particle size, density, settling rate and tank geometry are all considered when designing the mixing system.


The mixing system can be paired with thermophilic as well as mesophilic digesters, and can be coupled with heat exchangers. The system can be used in channels as well as in circular, square, and rectangular tanks. Suitable applications include tanks with gas holders, or fixed and membrane roofs, with the tanks located either above or below ground. There are more than 300 JetMix system installations around the world.


View the original article here

UK brewery embraces anaerobic digestion - Guttridge



Rapid growth of the anaerobic digestion sector has been highlighted by the adoption of the technology by a Suffolk brewery.


Adnams Brewery has introduced anaerobic digestors to its Southwold plant to turn waste from the site and surrounding companies into biogas for the national grid.


Climate change minister Greg Barker expressed his delight at the move as it follows the announcement that Thames Water and British Gas will turn sewage into biogas.


He said: "This has been an excellent week for progress in renewable energy. As well as the waste from making beer, Adnams Bio Energy is taking in food waste from local businesses large and small."


Adnams claimed that the waste by-products generated from brewing 600 pints of beer could generate enough gas for one home a day.


In addition to producing power for the local community, the gas will also be used to power the Southwold brewery and run its fleet of vehicles.


Typical Guttridge equipment used in the anaerobic digestion industry includes; elevatorsbucket elevatorsvalves


James Smith ADNFCR-2798-ID-800107536-ADNFCR


View the original article here

03 December 2010

United Ethanol to generate methane - Biofuels International


Bioenergy International Asia expo and conference 
"In an attempt to get more value out of the corn used in its biofuel production facility, ethanol producer United Ethanol is to install an anaerobic digester. Within a matter of weeks United Ethanol’s anaerobic digestion project will be underway at its 50 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant in Milton, Wisconsin, US. Eisenmann Corp. has been contracted to install the biomass equipment, which is expected to be up and running by Q4 2011. ‘It’s a way to extract a little more value out of our inputs – the corn – and make the plant greener and more energy efficient,’ commented the VP of United Cooperative and United Ethanol Alan Jentz.


The new anaerobic digester will produce methane from thin stillage, reducing the consumption of natural gas at the facility by 25%.


In addition to reducing the plant’s carbon footprint the anaerobic digester will also minimise the amount of fermentation solids that need to be recycled, reduce both fermentation inhibitors and evaporator bottlenecks and eliminate syrup load-out. $2.25 million (€1.6 million) of the $6.75 million project will come from Wisconsin’s economic development tax credits and energy programme, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


In an attempt to get more value out of the corn used in its biofuel production facility, ethanol producer United Ethanol is to install an anaerobic digester. Within a matter of weeks United Ethanol’s anaerobic digestion project will be underway at its 50 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant in Milton, Wisconsin, US. Eisenmann Corp. has been contracted to install the biomass equipment, which is expected to be up and running by Q4 2011.


‘It’s a way to extract a little more value out of our inputs – the corn – and make the plant greener and more energy efficient,’ commented the VP of United Cooperative and United Ethanol Alan Jentz. The new anaerobic digester will produce methane from thin stillage, reducing the consumption of natural gas at the facility by 25%.


In addition to reducing the plant’s carbon footprint the anaerobic digester will also minimise the amount of fermentation solids that need to be recycled, reduce both fermentation inhibitors and evaporator bottlenecks and eliminate syrup load-out. $2.25 million (€1.6 million) of the $6.75 million project will come from Wisconsin’s economic development tax credits and energy programme, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  


United Ethanol to generate methane
1 November 2010


In an attempt to get more value out of the corn used in its biofuel production facility, ethanol producer United Ethanol is to install an anaerobic digester.


Within a matter of weeks United Ethanol’s anaerobic digestion project will be underway at its 50 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant in Milton, Wisconsin, US.


Eisenmann Corp. has been contracted to install the biomass equipment, which is expected to be up and running by Q4 2011.


‘It’s a way to extract a little more value out of our inputs – the corn – and make the plant greener and more energy efficient,’ commented the VP of United Cooperative and United Ethanol Alan Jentz.


The new anaerobic digester will produce methane from thin stillage, reducing the consumption of natural gas at the facility by 25%.


In addition to reducing the plant’s carbon footprint the anaerobic digester will also minimise the amount of fermentation solids that need to be recycled, reduce both fermentation inhibitors and evaporator bottlenecks and eliminate syrup load-out.


$2.25 million (€1.6 million) of the $6.75 million project will come from Wisconsin’s economic development tax credits and energy programme, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


Latest Issue
 

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Renewable specialists Farmgen seal £2.1m of bank funding - Click Green

by ClickGreen staff. Published Tue 09 Nov 2010 10:55 Work starts on pioneering new AD site Work starts on pioneering new AD site

Renewable energy specialist Farmgen has secured a £2.1million loan from the Co-operative Bank – marking the first bank debt-financed on-farm anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in the UK.

The pioneering 11-year deal will support the construction and operation phases of the AD plant at Carr Farm, in Lancashire – which will become the blueprint for Farmgen’s future sites.

Central to the funding structure and securing the loan for Carr Farm is a 20-year Feed in Tariff, the Government backed scheme that guarantees payments for electricity generated from renewable sources.

In addition, Marks & Spencer has signed a five-year contract to buy the energy generated from the plant at a fixed price – in keeping with the retailer’s commitment to procure more renewable electricity from small-scale energy sources.

Manchester-based solicitors Heatons advised Farmgen on the deal, which represents a major milestone in the company’s plans to drive the biggest AD ‘energy farming’ expansion programme in the UK.

The construction of the £3m AD plant at Carr Farm, near Preston, is now well underway. When the plant becomes fully operation in spring 2011 it will generate 800kW of electricity – the equivalent of powering more than 1,000 homes.

Ed Cattigan, Chief Operating Officer at Blackpool-based Farmgen and broker of the deal, said: “This arrangement is the first of its kind for an AD plant in the UK. The Co-op was chosen as the bank has previous experience in this type of deal for wind farms and this philosophy was utilised in the brokering of the loan.

“To have secured such a deal with the Co-op Bank is testament to how robust our offering to the market is and the growing belief in what AD plants can deliver in the UK.”

Matthew Andrews, Senior Corporate Advisor of The Co-operative Bank, added: “The bank recognises the importance of renewable energy in helping the UK's transition to a low carbon economy and is committed to supporting projects that not only fit perfectly with our ethical values but also make full use of sustainable energy resources.

“Farmgen was able to obtain the long term contracts that are fundamental to a project finance package and the bank was delighted to be able to assist in making the development of the facility at Carr Farm a reality.”

Mervyn Bowden, Head of Energy Management at M&S, said: “Since 2006 we’ve been actively encouraging the development of Anaerobic Digestion as a technology for generating renewable electricity.

“We’re delighted to see this plant going ahead. For M&S it helps to support our commitments under Plan A, our sustainability programme, to procure 100% ‘green’ electricity by 2012. For farmers and landowners it’s a great case study on how to get involved with renewable energy generation.”

James Flynn, Partner at Heatons LLP, added: “This deal represented a new direction for the Co-operative but Farmgen’s plans for the plant are absolutely ground breaking. This was a real team effort that encompassed a number of different specialisms within the firm and it was very rewarding to manage the project from inception through to financial close.”

The plant is also being supported by funding from a small group of major private investors, including Simon Rigby, the founder and former CEO of Spice plc.

Established in 2009, Farmgen is now Britain’s leading specialist in farm-based AD power generation. The company has several other sites in the pipeline in Cumbria, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands. Construction on a second Farmgen plant in Silloth, Cumbria is set to begin later this year.


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Call for more detail on renewables incentives - New Energy Focus

Friday 22 October 2010


Call for more detail on renewables incentives


Scottish finance secretary John Swinney has called for more information on Scottish Government access to the £190 million Fossil Fuel Levy


The government has been urged to set out details of its plans for renewable energy incentive schemes in order to provide investor confidence.


This has come as more trade bodies have joined in the celebration of Chancellor George Osborne's announcement that the government will fund an Renewable Heat Incentive and will not amend Feed-in Tariffs until 2013 (see this NewEnergyFocus.com story).


However, while the Spending Review has been fairly widely accepted by the renewables industry, it has now stressed the need for more information to come quickly so that projects can move forward.


Cathy Debenham, director of community energy forum YouGen, said: "Given that our recent poll found that 85% of people are holding back on installing renewable heat at home due to uncertainty about the renewable heat incentive, this announcement is good news. However, it does not go far enough.


"Until we know more detail people still won't have confidence to invest, and installers will continue to be in limbo. I urge the goverment to release its response to the consultation as soon as possible, so that consumers, industry and investors have clarity and the confidence to move forward."


She added that a rumour has been circulating that the microgeneration end of the RHI may be cut.


Also awaiting more surety on the scale of the RHI, Lord Redesdale, chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA), called for the government to prioritise AD.


He said: "Making a commitment of £860 million for the RHI is a major step forward. The most effective use of government incentives is to promote the production of biomethane through anaerobic digestion"Unlike many other renewable technologies, anaerobic digestion can help meet a wide variety of targets, including renewable energy, climate change and resource preservation. It can also scale up quickly at relatively little cost."


Elsewhere, the microgeneration sector welcomed the news that FiTs are unlikely to be reviewed and amended until 2013, as was scheduled. However, chief executive of the Micropower Council, Dave Sowden, added that it is important to have sufficient notice of changes to give investors confidence in the stability of the regulatory framework.


He said: "The reductions are of course going to be challenging, but they are sufficiently far into the future that the industry has time to plan for them, and assist government in constructive policy proposals to bear some of the burden.


"The most important thing is to give sufficient notice for customers and investors to remain confident in the stability of the regulatory framework. This is a good day for our industry, its investors, and its customers."


Looking at how the Spending Review announcements will affect the Scottish renewables sector, the Scottish Government and trade body Scottish Renewables welcomed many of the measures.


Scottish finance secretary, John Swinney, said: "There are elements in today's statement that we welcome. I note the Chancellor's words to support clean energy and renewables."


However, he claimed that there were major questions about how and when the proposed Green Investment Bank would operate.


And, the Scottish Government has also called for answers about what exactly the Treasury is proposing regarding Scottish Government access to the £190 million Fossil Fuel Levy, and how it can be used to directly support the renewables sector.


Following on with this issue, Niall Stuart, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, added: "We're still working through the detail, but the fact that any money drawn down by Scottish ministers from the Fossil Fuel Levy fund will continue to result in a corresponding deduction from Departmental Expenditure Limit means that it is not yet clear if the Scottish Government will be able to increase its spending on renewables at this critical time in the industry's development."


View the original article here

21 November 2010

United Ethanol to install anaerobic digester - Ethanol Producer Magazine

A $6.75 million project to install an anaerobic digester at a 50 MMgy ethanol plant in Milton, Wis., will begin in a few weeks. United Ethanol LLC will complete the project with the help of $2.25 million in state energy program funds. ?It?s a way to extract a little more value out of our inputs, the corn, and make the plant greener and more energy efficient,? said Alan Jentz, United Cooperative and United Ethanol vice president of grain operations and risk management.




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On Oct. 21, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle announced $2.95 million in funding for three southern Wisconsin companies, including United Ethanol. The money comes from Wisconsin?s economic development tax credits and energy program, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The other two projects were $250,000 in tax credits for Standard Process Inc., a whole food supplements company, and $450,000 in energy program funds for Idle Free Systems Inc., which sells battery-powered, idle-elimination systems for over-the-road trucks.


In total, more than $55 million in state energy funds from the recovery act are being used in Wisconsin to help manufacturers with energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. According to the governor?s office, Wisconsin is the only state using 100 percent of these funds for these types of projects. In August, Ace Ethanol LLC received $595,000 in funding from the same program for heat exchange equipment.

United Ethanol's' anaerobic digester will utilize a portion of the plant?s thin stillage to create methane, which will help reduce natural gas use at the plant by up to 25 percent. The project will have an estimated four-year payback, Jentz said.


The project has multiple benefits, including reducing the plant?s carbon footprint. The anaerobic digester is also expected to reduce the number of fermentation solids that have to be recycled, reduce fermentation inhibitors, reduce evaporator bottlenecks and eliminate syrup load-out, Jentz said.


Technology provider Eisenmann Corp. will install the digester. The project should take about a year to complete. ?We hope to get that under way here in the next few weeks, so hopefully it will be online by this time next year,? he said.


Anaerobic digestion isn?t the only technology upgrade project United Ethanol has on its plate. David Cramer, president and CEO, mentioned three projects in the company's August newsletter. The company is working to tie in the CO2 scrubber stack and process vent gas scrubber stack into the regenerative thermal oxidizer for odor control. In addition, it has a license agreement with GreenShift Corp. to use its corn oil extraction technology. United Ethanol has also contracted with Arisdyne Systems Inc. to install controlled flow cavitation, a patented process to reduce particle size, disrupt cell structures and disperse agglomerates for increased ethanol yield.


View the original article here

Save Money With Renewable Energy Biogas

Renewable energy biogas is a fuel mixture that can be made from biomass and contains methane and carbon dioxide; it has sixty five percent of the former and thirty five percent of the latter. Biogas is usually prepared by anaerobic fermentation using bacteria which can degrade organic substances to form this fuel gas.




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Many people have now turned to using renewable energy biogas as it is highly economical and also safe for the environment. In addition, it also helps to decrease organic waste load that is otherwise dumped and left to degrade on its own. By preparing this fuel gas, we help to reduce this load efficiently without polluting the environment.


Another advantage of renewable energy biogas is that it can be created using minimal investment even in the backyard of your home. The digested sludge that is given out as a waste product is very useful as manure for agronomic purposes and thus helps to grow produce in an organic manner. Since biogas can be used for all home needs, it cuts down on the use of LPG and thus on the consumption of fossil fuels.


The manure that is formed this way has fewer odors and can be easily assimilated by plants; there is also the added advantage that using this fertilizer can reduce the risk of disease causing organisms affecting the plants which is good both for the economy as well as health of the society. This also helps to keep out other insects near the storage pit thus maintaining the area neat and tidy.


There is very little money involved in building an apparatus for making renewable energy biogas. Invest in this today itself and create free fuel for all your household needs from the organic wastes that gets accumulated at home.


If you're considering adding a solar panel to your home, to dramatically lower your electricity bill, then check out my video's on how I made my own solar panel for only few hundred dollars!

20 November 2010

The Basics Of The Anaerobic Digestion Process

It is, therefore necessary to contain and treat these wastes so that the treated waste sludge is stable; the offensive odour is removed; the quantity of pathogenic bacteria is reduced; the mass and volume of sludge is reduced and the sludge can be readily dewatered and dried.




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Anaerobic digestion is the most common method in use today for treating waste water sludges. Its attractiveness comes from it being a relatively stable process if properly controlled, with low operating costs and the production of a useful by-product, a combustible gas, which can be used as a source of energy.


The advantages of this process:


The organic content of the sludges is significantly reduced by conversion into gaseous end-products; the obnoxious odour of the sludge is removed and the final digested sludge has a characteristic 'tarry' odour; fats and greases are broken down by the process; there is a significant reduction in the quality of pathogenic bacteria; there is a marked chemical change after digestion. The liquid fraction (supernatant) contains increased levels of ammonia as a result of the breakdown of organic nitrogen (proteins). This makes the digested sludge liquor potentially suitable for agricultural use; the biogas that is formed is a mixture of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) that can be used for digester heating or to generate power.


The disadvantages of this process:


A relatively high initial capital cost is involved, which tends to limit the process to medium to large size waste water works. The slow rate of bacterial growth requires long periods of time for start-up and limits the flexibility of the process to adjust to changing feed loads, temperatures and other environmental conditions. The process is prone to upsets if not regularly monitored and if corrective action is not taken in time.


Anaerobic Digestion is a multi-stage biological waste treatment process whereby bacteria, in the absence of oxygen, decompose organic matter to carbon dioxide, methane and water. In this way, the waste sludge is stabilised and the obnoxious odour is removed. The process can, however be described adequately and simply as occurring in two stages, involving two different types of bacteria. The first stage, the organic material present in the feed sludge is converted into organic acids (also called volatile fatty acids) by acid forming bacteria. In the second stage, these organic acids serve as the substrate (food) for the strictly anaerobic methane-producing bacteria, which converts the acids into methane and carbon dioxide. The end result of the process is a well-established sludge in which 40 to 60% of the volatile solids are destroyed. Finally, a combustible gas consisting of 60 to 75% methane and the remainder largely being carbon dioxide.


The digestion process is continuous. Fresh feed sludge must be added continuously or at frequent intervals. The gas formed during digestion is removed continuously. In high-rate digestion, stabilised sludge is displaced from the digester during feeding. In low-rate digestion, sludge 'supernatant' is normally removed as the feed sludge is added, stabilised sludge is removed at less frequent intervals.


It is essential that the organic acids formed in the first stage of the waste treatment process are converted to methane at the same rate at which they are formed. If not, they accumulate and ultimately lower the pH, leading to inhibition of the second stage of the digestion process and digester failure. Temperature must be maintained within certain ranges - heating increases the activity of the anaerobic bacteria reducing the required digestion time. A pH of 7,0 to 7,5 is recommended to encourage the methane-producing stage. A correctly operating digester will have sufficient buffer capacity (alkalinity) introduced from the breakdown of organic matter.


Michael Russell


Your Independent guide to Waste Treatments [http://waste-treatments.com]

19 November 2010

The Final Product Of Biomass Energy

Utilization of biomass as an alternative energy source has attracted people to promote its use. This is caused by a decline in fossil energy reserves. This is a dangerous point for energy security in the last decade.




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To avoid future energy crises, they began to increase use of renewable energy sources such as biomass. More than that, the use of fossil fuels increases the concentration of sulfur and greenhouse gases in nature.


Governments in various countries around the world have adopted policies favorable to the use of biomass as an energy alternative. So that industry players will get a subsidy from the government.


Biomass can be used as energy with a wide variation. Utilization of biomass produces electricity, heat for industrial facilities, home heating and fuels vehicle.


Conversion of biomass for energy is called bio-energy. This conversion can be achieved with some solutions that thermochemical and biochemical technologies. Thermochemical process is divided into three technology solutions are combustion, gasification and pyrolysis.


To understand the meaning of each Technology solution, we can learn from the final product On combustion, have the final product steam, process heat and electricity energy. Each has its own type of function. Steam can be used to drive steam engines, while the heat can be used for processing in the chemical industries.


The final products of electric can be used more flexibly. This product of gasification is the steam, the process of heat, electrical energy and methane gas fuel and hydrogen. Methane and hydrogen can be used as a fuel cell system. This system is increasingly popular as the technology of the future.


Pyrolysis technology solutions, has the final product is charcoal, coal and bio-gas fuel. Charcoal and bio-coal can be an analogy as coal but more environmentally friendly. This is because emissions from the production of bio-coal and charcoal lower than coal. Biochemical process produces anaerobic digestion the technology solution. This technology has the final product of ethanol, water for irrigation, compost and biogas.


Nugroho Agung Pambudi has been writing articles including papers for nearly 3 years now. His journal papers can be reached both international journal and conference. Come visit his latest website at http://www.geothermalheatingandcooling.us which help people find information about geothermal heating and cooling

The New Waste Technologies: Recycling and Creating Energy From Waste

Many governments, towns and communities throughout the Western world are making new rules concerning the treatment of Municipal Solid waste (MSW). New concepts of waste management are needed in which the idea of recycling is of major importance.


Incineration will be used for the easily burnable fraction of what cannot be recycled, and for some kinds of hazardous wastes such as hospital waste, while the left over will be disposed of in sanitary MSW landfills.




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The recycling of products is best done at source by the public when they put their waste out for collection and this is called source separation. However, if the waste is mixed up when collected it can still be separated again by mechanical separation plants or by hand picking using human labour and a conveyor.


The plants in which the separation of mixed wastes is carried out are usually called Mechanical Biological Treatment Plants, or MBTs. These plants cost a lot to build, are expensive to run. They also use a lot of power which reduces the value of recycling by expending non-renewable energy in the process.


The last decade has seen source separation introduced in many countries, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. Now, more recently source separation is being implemented in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe now that European Waste Regulations require so much of the MSW produced not to be landfilled.


The most important reasons to separate waste at the source are:


- The difficulty to find sites for new landfills and the negative attitude of the public towards landfilling and incinerating.


- Source separation improves the quality of the products which will have to be recycled. The fact that the organic fraction is separated from the inorganic fraction means that the organic fraction will have a low concentration of heavy metals and will be free of metals, glass and stones, while the inorganic fraction will be drier and less dirty.


The degree of recycling which can be achieved depends of the system used for source separation but it is the highest if the separated waste is picked up at the houses in separate containers.


A high percentage of recycling can only be achieved though by recycling the organic fraction of MSW whereby anaerobic techniques such as the anaerobic digestion process are very promising since they not only produce a humus-like residue, comparable to the compost produced in aerobic conversion techniques, but also a form of energy, biogas, which can be easily upgraded to several forms of valuable energy.


So, by source separating your waste you can make a difference - especially if there is an Anaerobic digestor in your area.


Why not find out more about waste technologies, and encourage your friends to recycle. Your children and later generations will benefit - don't they deserve the same opportunities you had?


Steve Last is a regular contributor of waste management related articles. Visit http://www.waste-technology.co.uk, the Waste Technology Web Site to find out more.


He also maintains a dog breed and many others at The Dog Breeds Compendium Tibetan Terrier page.

29 October 2010

Anaerobic digestion fuel may run vehicles - Horticulture Week

Pearson revealed at the conference - held last month in Coventry - that the Cheshire-based company, which supplies tomatoes to big retailers like Tesco and Iceland, has already developed the fuel and bought its first vehicle, which it hopes will be up and running by next summer. He said: "We have made the fuel - we are just making sure that it is of a consistent quality."




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Pearson revealed that the family business, which has been growing tomatoes for 40 years, aimed to have its own eco-fuelling point for the vans, whose bio-methane-based fuel means that they will be able to avoid congestion charges.


Biomethane is one of many products of the anaerobic digestion plant that Pearson built at the growing site in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, a couple of years ago.


All of the waste material from the nursery is fed into the digester, helping the company to reduce its annual landfill volumes from 2,500 tonnes before its installation four years ago to 200 tonnes in 2009.


His confidence in the commercial potential of the anaerobic digestion plant has led him to set up another company, Anaerobic Digestion, of which he is managing director. He told growers: "The opportunities are huge but I have to be careful I do not rush out and get too excited about it."


He explained that the company manipulated the anaerobic digestion process to get as many products out of it as possible. It has managed, for example, to make its anaerobic digestion plant "close to unique" by enabling it to produce liquid digestate rather than the sludge-like digestate typically produced by most anaerobic digestion systems.


Pearson said: "There is not one like it in the world. We are exceptionally proud of it. Most anaerobic digestion plants have solid digestate but ours is liquid.


At the moment it's got a bit of a green tint, which I am not happy about, but nevertheless in the time since we started (this process) we have become the only system in the world with a liquid digestate.


"Lots of anaerobic digestion plants in the UK have gone bankrupt because they kept to the European model, which does not fit with the UK experience." He told Grower after the conference that the problem with sludge digestate is that there is "too much of it around - but now we have a tangible and useful product".


Pearson has made a deal with the Sports Turf Research Institute, which, from next year will enable its associations to use the whitish-green liquid as a fertiliser. He said: "It has enzymes in it that do not work on our crops but that work very well on grass."


The grower has worked with several universities, including the University of York and the University of Central Lancashire, to get to this stage. "We have done a lot of work on understanding what happens in the plant at different phases and times. I want to try and understand what happens," he said.


Scientists have helped develop a pre-treatment vessel to better break down the organic plant material.


Pearson explained: "Plants have a natural ability to heal themselves.


When you chop them up they try to heal and the whole lot goes solid. So we overcame that with a pre-treatment."


The plant matter is held in the pre-treatment vessel for 24 hours after being physically reduced by a flail. The vessel is heated and agitated to give the enzyme-breakdown process a boost. Pearson said: "It helps to accelerate the process by dealing with typically difficult-to-digest materials."


Scientists have also analysed the bacteria involved in the digestion process to "maximise the reduction time to help get the best output".


Pearson added: "We have now halved our reduction time from 14 days to seven." He told Grower that he was continuing to work with the scientist because he eventually hopes to produce a fertilizer that can be used on his crops - and find an energy-efficient way of extracting water from the plant so that it can be used to irrigate the tomatoes.


By next season Pearson also hopes to use the CO2 produced during the anaerobic digestion process on his crops. The company also continues to use the heat and power created from the biomethane to run and heat its glasshouses.


View the original article here

Government to encourage anaerobic digestion projects - Guttridge

The government has pledged to encourage farmers to invest in anaerobic digestion projects, it has been revealed.


Junior DEFRA minister Lord Henley said he was in talks with the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to help improve Feed-in Tariff rates which are rewarded to those who set up renewable energy programmes.


Speaking at the Northern Farming Conference today (October 15th), he said: "We want to do what we can. That obviously will in due course with DECC mean looking at feed-in tariffs and a whole range of other things.

"We have given a commitment that we will encourage anaerobic digestion."


Lord Henley also claimed the technology can offer farmers a wide range of benefits other than energy production.


In addition to reducing the a

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mount of waste which is sent to the landfill, the bi-product of the anaerobic digestion process can be used as a fertiliser for crops.


Typical Guttridge equipment used in the anaerobic digestion industry includes; elevatorsbucket elevatorsvalves


James Smith ADNFCR-2798-ID-800119793-ADNFCR


View the original article here

28 October 2010

New plant to boost rural-based businesses - Whitehaven News

Published at 09:42, Tuesday, 19 October 2010

BUILDING work to create a £3million environmentally-friendly power plant in Cumbria is now on course to start by the end of the year, the company behind the pioneering scheme has revealed.

Farmgen, which is developing the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant, believes it could be fully operational and supplying electricity to the national grid by the autumn of 2011.

The company has been unable to carry out any building to date on site, at Dryholme Farm, near Silloth, because of the government environmental stewardship agreement, which existed for the farm under its previous ownership.

The agreement came to an end on September 30, which means construction of the plant can now get under way.

In the past few months, other detailed preparatory work has been carried out on the project. That followed the granting of planning permission for the plant, which will generate 1.2MW of electricity, by Allerdale planners earlier this year.

Farmgen says the plant – which will create enough continuous power for more than 1,000 homes – will provide a significant boost to the rural economy.

It believes other similar AD operations will soon be commonplace across the UK and has already earmarked a number of potential ‘energy farming’ sites across Cumbria.

Work on Dryholme's £3m sister plant in Warton, Lancashire is now well advanced. Building work is nearing completion to create the two large tanks, which will form the centre-piece of the pioneering scheme.

It is on target to start providing renewable energy to power more than 1,000 homes next year.

Farmgen chief operating officer, Ed Cattigan, said: “We are highly delighted with the progress being made at Warton but we have also been doing a lot of detailed work to ensure that we can move Dryholme Farm to the next stage of its development.

“The stewardship agreement that existed for that site has meant we have been unable to carry out building work at Silloth, but that has now run its course and we are ready to move forward. Following the site preparation, we are firmly on course for construction work to start by the end of the year.”

Farmgen has put together an impressive consortium of expert UK-based firms to deliver its first tranche of AD plants. The consortium includes a number of leading members of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA).

The industry’s latest technology and know-how is being supplied to the project by leading UK process and technology business Monsal. It has been involved in more than 200 AD projects and has the largest team of ‘biogas-to-energy’ technology specialists in the country.

Other members include Kirk Environmental, a specialist company manufacturing AD tanks, and engineering specialist Agrilek, which operates from Barrow-in-Furness, and has been brought on board to connect the plant to the national grid.

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk


View the original article here

27 October 2010

Turning waste food into power - Witney Gazette


Where there’s muck there’s brass, they say, and many at Worton Farm, near Cassington, are now hoping the old adage is true. Certainly there is no shortage of muck there — in the pungent form of all that food waste most of us in Oxfordshire are now being told to consign to special bins.


No shortage of money, either, judging by the £9m invested in the county’s first anaerobic digester, officially opened by recycling minister Lord Henley yesterday.




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Formerly known as the Cassington Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Plant, it is run by Oxford Renewable Energy (ORE), a company owned 50-50 by organic recycling company Agrivert, of Radford, near Chipping Norton, and M&M Skips, based at Worton.


Agrivert commercial director Harry Waters said: “Oxfordshire has been at the forefront of pushing ahead and getting this scheme up and going.” He added: “The background to this initiative, nationally, is that the UK must meet targets set by the EU for reducing waste going to landfill. If it misses those targets it will be fined £150 for every tonne above the limit.”


Earlier this year Agrivert bid for and won the 20-year contract with the county council for processing all Oxfordshire’s organic waste, comprising what is technically called “controlled in-vessel compost” — including such nasties as chicken carcasses — and green waste. Already the none-too-fragrant pure food waste (sorted by the householder or commercial entity that produced it) has begun arriving at Worton Farm in lorries from the Vale of the White Horse, South Oxfordshire and Oxford City Councils.


From November 15, more deliveries are scheduled for the three- acre digester site — in the middle of the 120-acres between the A40 and the railway — as food-waste collections get under way in West Oxfordshire, too.


Cherwell’s waste goes to a different site in Ardley where pure food waste and green waste arrive without having been previously separated at source. The environmental case for building digesters such as this sounds convincing.


Mr Waters explained: “When running at full capacity, the digester will produce 4.5 million cubic metres of methane a year — which will be fed into a generator to produce 2.1 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 4,000 homes. The renewable electricity generated is fed into the National Grid and is already producing enough to power 2,100 homes.”


Mr Waters says the costs to Oxfordshire council tax payers are half that of dumping organic waste in landfill. Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and that if the waste were to go to landfill the gas given off as the stuff decomposes, would, in terms of global warming, be the equivalent of 71,000 cars on the road, each driving the UK average mileage a year.


If all goes to plan, Agrivert will build a similar digester on the edge of Benson airfield, near Wallingford.


Under the scheme, local councils bring the waste to the site in their lorries and dump it into a bunker in a closed warehouse, which keeps the smell indoors and away from the nearest neighbours, who are anyway 600 metres distant.


In the bunker, the rubbish is separated from contamination such as the plastic bags in which householders have placed it, some of which are degradable and some not.


The waste is then homogenised and pasteurised (a requirement since the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth) and stored and stirred for 50 days as a sort of sterile soup in the first two of those five huge green tanks now visible to passengers on the Cotswold Line railway.


Then it moves on to the next two tanks for another 25 days for further maturing at different temperatures.


The fifth tank is used to store the end product — something called digestate, which is sold to local farmers as a chemical-free fertiliser.


It seems that every step of the process is potentially profitable. Significantly, when fully up and running, the plant will only employ a grand total of two people on site.


The electricity produced powers the generator on site too, which also produces renewable heat — some of which is used to heat the pasteurisers and the digesters. With the help of a grant from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), more of the heat generated will be used to dry woodchip, seen as a useful fuel of the future, for use, for instance, in boilers to heat schools.


Worton Farm, owned by green industries businessman Guy Pharaon, who is also a shareholder of M&M Skips, is seen is an ideal site: close to Oxford and yet isolated.


The Cassington Anaerobic Digestion Plant is the initiative of company managing director Alexander Maddan, who served in the army in Germany and saw how energy is produced from waste there.


He said: “I was originally interested in producing energy from sewage. Then I learned about energy from food waste.


“The Germans are far ahead of us in this area.”


He added that finding the millions of pounds needed to pay for Agrivert’s half share of the plant had not been easy, even though the venture received a £1.6m grant from the Government agency Wrap (Waste and Resources Action Programme) based in Banbury.


He said: “We were committed to the purchase when the credit crunch struck and our finance disappeared. However we were able to go ahead eventually. But it was challenging.”


Agrivert, a privately owned company, has negotiated contracts in Hertfordshire, Essex, Pembrokeshire and Newcastle as well as Oxfordshire.


It also owns three sites for composting garden waste in Oxfordshire at Chipping Norton, Benson, and Hinton Waldriss.


But the Cassington anaerobic digester is the first to be built on this scale in the UK. It puts Oxfordshire among the leaders in the recycling stakes, with South Oxfordshire now showing the second highest recycling rate for any district in England and Wales.


All the expensive equipment on site, including the two generators worth about £750,000 each, was built in Germany; much of it by the specialist firm Wacherbauer.


Mr Waters said: “It’s true that Britain is way behind Germany, but we have made huge strides in the right direction in the last few years.”


He added: “Our next challenge is to start take food waste from commercial properties such as Oxfordshire schools and hospitals.


“We reckon the waste from 40 schools equals the waste of 65,000 households.”



View the original article here

Understanding Biogas As an Alternative Fuel Choice


Biogas is a mix mainly of methane and carbon dioxide and is produced naturally when organic matter decomposes in the absence of oxygen. Biogas is produces from Land filling and through anaerobic digestion. Depending on place where it is produced, biogas can also be called swamp gas, marsh gas, and landfill gas or digester gas.

Anaerobic digestion is one of the methods through which biogas is produced. Biogas can be produced utilizing anaerobic digesters. Here, the plants can be fed with energy crops such as maize silage or biodegradable wastes including sewage sludge and food waste; whereas, the landfill gas is produced by organic waste decomposing under anaerobic conditions in a landfill. Gober Gas is the other form of biogas generated out of cow dung. This type of biogas is produced mainly in the households of India and Pakistan.

Biogas has many advantages over other alternative fuels. One of the main advantages of biogas is that the technology is cheaper and much simpler than those for other biofuels. Recovery of the methane is spontaneous as the gas automatically separates from the substrates. Dilute waste materials can be used as substrate. In the process of making biogas, organic pollutants are removed from the environment and used to generate useful biogas and this actually cleans the environment. Aseptic conditions are not needed for operation. Other advantage of biogas is that it will not produce any unpleasant odours. Electricity can be generated with biogas 24 hours a day. There is reduced risk of explosion as compared to pure methane and any biodegradable matter can be used as substrate for producing biogas.

As it has many advantages, biogas too has few disadvantages as well. One among them is that the product (biogas) value is rather low and this makes it an unattractive commercial activity. This process is not very attractive economically (as compared to other biofuels) on a large industrial scale. Biogas contains some gases as impurities, which are corrosive to the metal parts of internal combustion. Other major disadvantage of biogas is that its yields are lower due to the dilute nature of substrates.

Nevertheless, Biogas can become a great substitute for other conventional energy sources.








Clifton is a qualified mechanical engineer committed to finding alternative fuel sources that can be incorporated into everyday life. Alternative energy sources with reduced environmental effects will need to be discovered and used in order to generate the power requirements our lifestyle currently demands.


26 October 2010

Biogas Methane is the Great Building Block For the New Sustainable World


Biogas methane is the opposite of carbonaceous methane which is methane created from fossil fuels many thousands of years ago. So, in other words it is recently created, biologically produced methane made from renewable organic matter. It is also by definition man-made, made in a biogas plant, and it is the one great future raw material for building a sustainable world from which all others will come, which can still create and consume all the synthetic organic materials we find so essential to our lifestyles in the modern world.

The need to distinguish methane gas derived methane from fossil fuel which also known as natural gas, has brought the term into use, and I think you should know it as it will become more and more important to society as the years go. This will happen as oil, gas and coal extracted from mineral deposits begin to run out. By running out I mean that extracting the remaining fossil fuels will largely become too energy expensive to collect, due to all the easy reserves becoming depleted.

Natural gas comes from the world's mineral reserves, where it has been stored in the ground since its formation from prehistoric living plants and animals. Large quantities of natural gas/methane also seeps out from old oilfields, coal mines and coal measures which wastes a lot of natural gas which as soon as it enters the atmosphere is lost to man's use.

In fact methane which enters the atmosphere is thought to be a very potent cause of greenhouse warming. Methane is something like twenty times more active in absorbing the sun's heat, and causing global warming, than carbon dioxide.

But, believe it or not man can keep creating biogas methane forever as long as he keeps re-growing more crops to produce more biogas methane and uses it by burning it before it escapes, because those crops will suck the carbon dioxide produced by burning back out of the air, and the system remains stable.

Biogas methane is produced in biogas plants, although strictly these are properly called anaerobic digestion plants.

This renewable and sustainable methane is a basic simple organic molecule building block from which engineers and chemists will for thousands of years create all the wonderful organic material based substances we need in our modern lives. Not only can (and will) biogas methane be used to replace oil as the initial feedstock for all our energy needs, if made in big enough quantities it can be used to satisfy all plastic and carbon based materials needs, including for pharmaceutical and transport fuels.








Thinking more about building a digester to produce biogas methane? Steve Last is web master for the fact filled Anaerobic Digestion Community web site where much more biogas methane information is available.

Steve Last is also a regular contributor of dog breed related articles at The Dog Breed Compendium.


25 October 2010

What is Biogas?


It seems like everywhere you look there are more and more fossil fuel alternatives being investigated. From ethanol to air, literally everything has been considered. Biogas is another one of these possibilities. It might be a term that is not familiar to some but it is not all that new of a resource because it is completely natural. Biogas comes from the anaerobic digestion of organic matter. In simple terms, this means that organic waste is compressed in a certain way that creates biogas which can be used as fuel. In fact, it is so natural that it almost makes one wonder why we did not consider using it sooner.

Biogas is created in landfills. When organic matter such as compost or natural waste is buried without oxygen, it starts to create a gas. This is biogas and it can be contained and used to produce energy. A landfill that is properly designed will produce biogas for several years. This gas is released into the earth's atmosphere, so it just makes sense that harnessing it and making use of it would be a better solution. As far as natural resources go, this might be one of the best.

For the most part biogas is made up of carbon dioxide and methane. However, quite often there are also varying quantities of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and various other natural gases. Special wells have to be drilled in order to properly get biogas out of a landfill. It is a much more efficient way of capturing all of the gas. At this time there is a train in Sweden that is currently powered by biogas. The use of sewage and cow waste is the primary fuel source for that train. It has been determined that biogas has virtually no trace of toxic emissions in comparison with fossil fuels.

There are several great benefits to using biogas as fuel. Not only does it produce much needed energy but it also eliminates all of the organic waste in landfills by giving it a purpose. This in turn also improves conditions in landfills regarding insects and the reduction of pathogens. Reducing the amount of methane in the earth's atmosphere is also a good idea which biogas helps with as well. Those that are interested in the benefits of biogas should do the necessary research in order to understand it better. As consumers and members of this earth, we all must do our part to make an educated choice.

There are a handful of disadvantages associated with biogas as well. The actual product value of biogas is incredibly low, which does not necessarily make it economically feasible. The process that is required to obtain biogas can also be quite expensive since special wells must be drilled. There is also reason to believe that some of the gases in biogas are corrosive to metal. This can be a problem because metal is a major component of automobile engines. Weighing the benefits and disadvantages is necessary in order to conclude if biogas will work for you.








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24 October 2010

Home Made Biogas - The Next Big Thing in Energy Cost Saving


With so many people who are keen to save money and are handy at DIY, home made biogas is the next most obvious way after insulation and solar panels:

Feature image for - Home Made Biogas article.

  • Save money on cooking fuel
  • Follow a green and sustainable lifestyle
  • Do it all without sacrificing the convenience and comfort of modern living.

Making biogas at home entails the use of a long forgotten technology (in the west at least) known as anaerobic digestion or AD. The secret of digesting organic waste materials in the absence of oxygen and simply piping the methane biogas produced to a cooking stove, has long been in use in India and China. Such plants have been run using community solid and liquid waste feed materials, and have been around for more than 200 years.

However, the DIY method catching on right now, is now much more advanced than those plants.

Furthermore, its use by those that are developing these the most successful home biogas plants has allowed it to be refined into a highly efficient and modern two stage thermophilic biogas production technique, similar to those used in large scale commercial biogas digestion plants. This DIY system utilizes wastes such as food waste and other high calorific biomass wastes available to householders.
These new home biogas systems are much quicker to produce biogas and more efficient in the quantity they produce per kilogram of organic feedstock produced, when compared with the traditional systems of the east.

They are also cheap to build using mass-produced "off the shelf" plastic tanks. A two stage digester capable of being maintained at the required very warm (thermophilic) temperatures should cost no more than $200 for materials.

What is more, the remaining liquid and fibrous materials which are the material left over after digestion are wonderful as fertilizer and soil improvement media for gardeners and fruit and vegetable growers.

Once you have successfully trialed DIY home made biogas for cooking, there is also a natural progression available for you in the future to go further and introduce electricity production from this biogas source. Quite naturally the industry (given a chance to get on with management and administration duties) will develop more sophisticated and efficient uses for the renewable (some would say "alternative") energy produced by AD.

Those who start now and gain the necessary AD Plant operational skills, by building and operating home made biogas plants, will soon find themselves very much in demand to design and build more plants for their friends and acquaintances.

We would also point out that as governments move forward over the next twenty or so years biogas and anaerobic digestion will become commonplace at all levels, and a huge amount of organic waste (now completely unused) will be utilized every day, for home made biogas production.

Are you thinking more about building a digester to produce home biogas methane? Steve Last is web master for the fact filled Anaerobic Digestion Community web site where much more home made biogas production information is available.

Low Cost Biogas Digesters Bring Big Advantages to Farmers


Biogas digesters are often considered to be something new by those in the developed nations, however, they have been widely used for many years in developing countries, especially India and China, as firewood for cooking becomes scarce. Other countries from Honduran farmers to the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, are able to harness the methane gas created naturally from decomposing manure and other organic materials. Besides producing the fuel gas, these biogas digesters (using the process of anaerobic digestion) have the added potential benefit of producing a high nutrient slurry fertilizer and providing better sanitation on farms.

The win-win process goes even further though because the emission of pollution from the digester is very much lower than without the digester, as well, so they can help to reduce river and groundwater pollution at the same time. A functional biogas digester system applies the science of microbiology and involves the development of renewable energy.

With biogas technology, the farm or community/human waste (called slurry) is stored in specially constructed containers while being digested. Biogas digester systems can accommodate manure handled as a liquid, slurry, or semisolid depending on the type of reactor design used. Biogas digesters take the biodegradable feedstock, and convert it into two useful products: gas and digestate (solid and liquid). Both of these are useful, and this is certain to be one of the main reasons why more and more farmers around the world are beginning to install a biogas digester.

Biogas digesters are usually built underground to protect them from temperature variations and also to prevent accidental damage. They not only perform the necessary actions required to keep the bacteria happy and creating the biogas, but designs suitable for farms and communities have been devised for the developing nations which are able to be replicated using items that are cheap, easy to source, and easy to assemble.

The typical developing nation biogas digester is constructed in a pit which is excavated by a trained labourer with assistance from one or more members of the household or community. A very common design for biogas digesters has a volume of 8m3, some are larger at 10-15m3, and provide enough gas for a two-ring stove and a light.

A biogas digester can function well on human and animal waste. We know of one Anaerobic Digester which is based upon pig farming, and is built below the pigsty. The pigsty is insulated, and the digester produces some heat as well, which helps to keep both the pigs and the biogas digester in the warm conditions both need during cold winter weather.

A biogas digester consists of one or more airtight reservoirs into which a suitable feedstock such as cow dung, human waste, or even abattoir waste, is placed, either in batches or by continuous feed. It is mixed and the solid and liquid digestate is removed on a regular basis. The methane bubbles to the surface, and in the simplest systems, it is stored as a big bubble above the liquid. In more sophisticated systems the methane is stored in separate tanks, for use when needed.

There is an enormous potential for benefit from the increased use of anaerobic digestion in Africa. An AGAMA Energy fact sheet estimates that in South Africa there are 400,000 households with two or more cows and no electricity that could make use of biogas digesters. An article dating back to30 November 2005, in the Rwandan newspaper The New Times states that the Institute for Scientific Research and Technology in Kigali plans to install some 1,500 biogas digesters by 2009 in the imidugudu settlements. These are villages where rural Rwandans were relocated after the genocidal wars of the mid-1990s.

Worldwide, about 16 million households use small-scale biogas digesters, according to Renewables 2005: Global Status Report, a study by the Worldwatch Institute.

It has been reported that in India a domestic biogas digester unit capable of producing energy for an entire family's cooking needs can be installed for between R5 000 and R8 000, that is less than 200 US Dollars. Facilities best suited for biogas digester systems typically have stable year-round manure production, and collect and feed the digester with manure daily.








Thinking more about building a digester? Steve Last is web master for the fact filled Anaerobic Digestion Community web site where much more biogas digester information is available.

Steve Last is also a regular contributor of dog breed related articles at The Dog Breeds Compendium.


23 October 2010

Biogas Technology - A Dynamic Approach To Desertification Challenge In Northern Nigeria


The evidence of climate change is glaring as the days go by. In Northern Nigeria, continually the environment is loosing grounds to desert encroachment. People living in these environment continually get their source of fuel for energy from wood.

The charcoal from wood is a big business in these part of Nigeria. However, people seems to forget that the wood emanates from the trees in the forest. Despite certain regulations concerning the use of woods, the activities of illegal loggers cannot be entirely supervised or curtailed.

The greatest hindrance to the observance of these regulations is the absence of alternative source of fuel as the use of kerosene is quite expensive for rural dwellers and availability is a problem in some area.

The Chinese has long identified the importance of biogas towards meeting the energy needs in rural areas. Biogas is produced through anaerobic digestion. The anaerobic production of biogas does not produce any offensive smell hence it is environmentally friendly, reduces green house effect, greatly increases the fertilizer value of manure and protects water source.

Biogas is generated by the activity of anaerobic bacteria. It is composed of 60% methane, 40% carbondioxide and small amount of hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen and hydrogen.

Biogas can be used for cooking, heating, generating electricity and running a vehicle.

The wonders and opportunities associated with biogas appears to be the best alternative along with solar options towards addressing the effect of desertification activities of people in rural area of Northern Nigeria.

In Northern Nigeria, Livestock rearing is a common practice thus raw material for biogas functionality is readily available.








Isaac Akogu is a Pharmacist and a Conversation Map Expert Trainer who commits over 40hours a week towards diabetes care, counselling, information, education and advocacy for subsidized drugs and treatment for orphans and widows in North Central Nigeria. http://www.diabetesguidenig.blogspot.com


Biogas and Biomethane Gains Wider Acceptance


Biogas is a wonderfully flexible and renewable form of energy and it can be used as a building block to make not only a wide variety of liquid fuels, but also organic chemicals and even plastics.

The biogas digestion (anaerobic digestion) process can be installed and run at the household level with simple training and support, and it can also be developed in huge projects to anaerobic make community and district anaerobic digestion plants. These can take up to 100,000 tons per year of organic waste and create methane from it.

When the methane produced is cleaned and compressed it is called biomethane, and can be pumped into the district grids which nowadays deliver us natural gas from fossil fuels.

A household biogas plant consists of a tank (at its simplest just an underground brick pit) where manure (human sanitary waste) and other organic materials are mixed with water and allowed to ferment.

A farm biogas plant does the same but in a larger reactor and usually takes the farm animal slurries, but can also in some Scandinavian plants also use silage. The silage is stored for use to feed farm biogas plants during the long cold winters, when other feed organic feed materials may be in short supply. The farm anaerobic digestion (AD) plant can in this way strengthen the ability of farm businesses to withstand bad weather and poor years when crops are poor, and its adoption in large numbers will therefore improve the resilience of the agricultural sector.

Let us not forget either that greater biogas production and the use of it will result in a reduction in greenhouse emissions and sizeable plants can make reductions of the order of 50,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalents annually.

An AD plant always contains two main components: a digester (or fermentation tank) and a gas holder. The digester in the most common types of plant is a rectangular-shaped or cylindrical leakproof vessel with an inlet into which the fermentable mixture is introduced in the form of a liquid slurry.

China is an example of a nation where the government has introduced a biogas program. More and more governments are realizing that biogas production brings benefits not only the ecological system, but it also benefits rural populations. India and Nepal are also well known for their digesters.

The benefits are many and include it being an alternative energy source, methane is very useful for cooking, improving rural sanitation, reducing firewood consumption, relieving the rural women's burden, providing a liquid fertilizer for the fields, and proving a sludge which can improve soil quality, plus more. What is more, each farmer my be able to obtain a cash income from this as well.

The actual results of bio-gas programmes have shown these real benefits improving rural life in so many ways.

In one example the biogas digester attached to toilets provides cooking gas for a 600-student school and vocational-training program the foundation runs. In the past, non-governmental organizations were the only ones offering these ideas but that is rapidly changing as the good word gets around.

After the fermentation has been completed in an AD plant, the biogas leaves from the top of the digester at a low pressure, sufficient to overcome the losses provide enough pressure to push the gas through a gas burner, and similarly through some power generation motors, without any compressor to raise pressure.

The countries in Europe are now beginning to sit up and take stock of successes in China and other nations, and are introducing new legislation to encourage the uptake of AD technology. These laws will be explained and discussed extensively at both the plenary sessions and in the workshops in a surprisingly large number of conferences this year.








Steve Last is an anaerobic digestion expert, and web master. You will find much more about this fascinating subject at his Biogas Digester web site. But for a simple Biogas Calculator follow the link earlier in this sentence.


22 October 2010

The Benefits of Biogas


The use of many of these modern fuel trends is nothing less than confusing for many consumers. Half of these terms have never been heard and the rest are defunct before we have even gotten used to them. Biogas may be another of these terms that most consumers require better understanding on. Biogas is actually one of the best ideas currently being tossed around. Not only does it provide a fuel alternative, it makes use of those nasty landfills as well.

Biogas comes from completely organic matter. It is a product created by the anaerobic digestion of organic matter such as vegetables and animal waste. It is a process that is done in a landfill without any oxygen. Oxygen must be eliminated from this process for the biogas to emit. Organic matter is sealed in the landfill away from oxygen and the result is the biogas.

Other countries have already put biogas to use in their economy. There is a particular train in Sweden that has been running on biogas for some time now. It's simply more efficient and earth friendly, which of course is the key factor. The Swedish train uses cow manure as the source of biogas it runs on. It can be quite fascinating what can be done with waste material.

It is important to be realistic when it comes to the use of biogas. There are only so many ways that you can save money. The cost of collecting the cow manure is something to be considered as well as the transportation and preparation of it for landfill biogas production.

The flip side of looking at costs though also shows that it will produce jobs. Some economies could greatly benefit from the jobs that would result from the production of biogas. It will help people on a personal level as well as society on a whole economical level.

Producing biogas is also a fabulous way to cut down on some of the waste that is sitting in our landfills. Organic materials in landfills contribute to a large percent of the space they take up, not to mention the bacterial factors that come with all of that waste sitting there.

The use of biogas can safely and efficiently reduce the amount of methane emissions currently being pumped out into the earth's atmosphere. Methane is one of the biggest environmental hazards that need to be reduced and eventually eliminated.

We all have choices to make regarding what we do to help the world around us. If you're doing your part to make a change and you want to switch fuel, check to see what a realistic option is where you live. Different places will have different fuel laws as well as available outlets. Look up everything from government requirements on green cars to ethanol fuel stations. Being informed is necessary so that you know what kind of difference you are making. A blind choice may not be the best one. Clarity is essential for your peace of mind and the protection of your invested money.








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21 October 2010

Digestion Technology Developments For Cheaper Renewable Fuel


A very popular idea currently gaining publicity is a very old concept: methane digestion. The methane given off during the decomposition of the manure is captured and burned, providing either heat or power, for electrical generation. These promise a minor revolution in small and medium scale energy generation from methane, with a scale smaller than wind turbines, but still significant in terms of national adjustments to high oil prices.

However, the digestion process has been criticized for being inefficient and unstable in operation. But, the technology of anaerobic digestion has been largely ignored until the last run on oil prices about 5 years ago (about 2003), when for the first time for as long as anyone can remember the oil price exceeded the production cost for fuel produced as methane by digestion.

Five years has been scarcely long enough for more than some half a dozen to one dozen AD plants to be designed, constructed and commissioned, in the UK for example. These should be considered to be a first generation of a new breed of reactors using this technology. This is a bit like the people who criticized the motor car for being slow while the law (in the UK certainly) required all automobiles to be preceded by a man holding a flag to warn pedestrians.

Many did criticize the automobile at that time, but do you want to do so for digestion, as I think that you will be looking as silly as those flag wavers were just ten years later, when the motor car became an established mode of transport.

There are many ways in which the efficiency of Anaerobic Digestion bio-reactors are being improved, and the first is by using sophisticated ultrasonic technology to break up the particles and so allow breakdown of a bigger proportion of the organic content.

In some of the other processes being developed the excess liquor from the process is used to re-wet incoming biowaste as it contains useful bacterial populations. This method can produce a faster reaction then the original start-up.

It is important because on-farm Digester (Anaerobic Digestion) projects can provide needed services to farmers; develop local, renewable electrical generation; enhance environmental quality; and generate income for the community.

Other researchers have identified the fact that if you have fluctuating temperatures, then you will not be able to establish an optimum microbial population. The digester stirring system must be efficient and operational at all times to ensure that the cold, newly introduced sludge, is mixed with the warm older solids and the bacteria. This sounds easy but in a large tank with a fairly viscous sludge mass it can be surprisingly onerous on the mixing technology.

Anaerobic digestion consists of a series of reactions which are catalyzed by a mixed group of bacteria and through which organic matter is converted in a step-wise fashion to methane and carbon dioxide. Polymers such as cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, and starch are hydrolyzed to oligomers or monomers, which are then metabolized by fermentative bacteria with the production of hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and volatile organic acids such as acetate, propionate, and butyrate. Clearly, this is a complex reaction which e can be greatly improved by better knowledge gained by further academic study which can now take place given the raised awareness and importance of this technique. This will most likely yet result in big advances in how man designs and runs its new digesters.

In the developing world another angle for them is selling carbon credits from the renewable energy created by anaerobic digestion on the worldwide market. Those credits should be a source of income for as well as providing a way to readily obtain seed capital for these projects from the banks.

However, the process also produces a solid and a liquid digestate in the slurry. The use of the process would not be sustainable without an environmentally safe method of disposal, and better still preferably a 'beneficial use' of the output from digestion.

The market for the digestion processing outputs is still undeveloped just about everywhere. However, there are some positive signs reported that the outputs will be genuinely useful, and indeed a source for additional revenue for the operators of these plants.

The adoption of manure digesters at animal operations is much more advanced in Europe than in the U.S. But, there are many successful AD plants in operation throughout the U.S.

Northern Concrete has one such installation and has reported on its digestion process. They have said that the feedstock (animal byproduct) goes into a holding area until it is ready to enter the digester. It sits in the digester for 22 days and is released as useful by-products like methane and a grassy sawdust-like product that can be used as fertilizer, animal bedding or after further processing for floor boards.

There is certainly other evidence of progress in selling AD outputs. Another operator (Pro-Gro Mixes of Tualatin, Ore.) is thought to have contracted to market the solids material or digested fiber to the wholesale nursery and landscape industries, reportedly. It is understood to be selling between 1,000 to 3,000 yards of digested fiber, under the FiberLife brand, per month in the Willamette Valley.

There is also potential for the methane to be burnt in efficient turbines, rather than today's ubiquitous reciprocating engines. Here the heat from turbine exhaust is used to maintain the optimum digester temperature and sustain bio-gas production. The resultant bio-gas is collected from one such system and cleaned, then used to fire the turbines. The results have reportedly been way above expectations, with a significant increase in production, higher yield and fewer rejects being recorded. The digester in question is thought to qualify as a small-power production facility, which means it follows a funding schedule, enabling projects to gain rapid approval.








Digestion can be considered for a wide variety of agricultural and industrial and commercial sites. From agricultural community scale Digesters to supermarkets with waste food, to municipal authorities with organic waste in their collected waste streams. All should now be considering the installation of digestion of one type of another. For more information visit the Digestion web site.


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