On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:32:33 GMT, Bill Vajk
wrote:

Lou Scannon wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 05:13:52 GMT, Bill Vajk
wrote:

OTOH anaerobic digestion has the advantage of creating plenty
of methane. In some parts of the world denuded of trees,
concrete anaerobic digesters are used for human excrement and
wasted food products to generate methane for cooking and heating
water. As it turns out, the amount of gas produced is approximately
correctly proportional to the number of persons whose waste
feeds the digester.

I find it odd that we in the US completely waste this renewable
resource.

That's a real interesting idea. Are there units available? or would
you have to rig something?

google "methane digester" 9790 hits

I don't know if anyone is manufacturing them, they're
plenty easy to build.


they do have the problem that they only produce about 60% methane,
with the rest of the *non odorous* components being primarily carbon
dioxide.

IIRC (from the Second Earth Day, when I was taking an eco class, and
had the bright idea of making a demo digester for our group's class
project), the digester are fairly sensitive to the ratio of carbon to
nitrogen, as well as needing a good seal...we had a lot of fun loading
that wet manure into the 55 gal drum...and then the safety folks for
the exhibition made us take the water trap off so we couldn't even
show bubbles...

ck
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)