Manure Studied as a Plentiful Fuel Source - Houston Chronicle

[Guest guest]

This is sort of bogus. The reason the mountains of manure are a disposal

problem is because of centralized feeding of cattle. The feed from the

cattle is produced using fossil fuel based fertilizers to replace the manure

that isn't put back into the fields. So the manure is to some extent a

surrogate form of petroleum.

 

If someone were to visit NV, I could show them hybrid poplars I planted

about 20 years ago. They can be grown on marginal lands, and the biomass

produced, without fossil fuels, in the leaves and twigs, are an efficient

feedstock for alcohol production. Alcohol is a fuel. The alcohol produced

by hybrid poplars (or other feedstocks such as house hold garbage) is a much

better alternative than burning manure on an industrial scale. IMHO.

[Guest guest]

> This is pretty impressive. India is far ahead of the West in the matter

> of biogas.

 

They are ahead because of the decentralized nature of the culture it is

being used in. The most efficient way to use biogas is to burn it directly.

To compress it takes about 27% of the energy contained in the gas (that

figure from memory - noone should quote it without verification).

 

Attempts to use biogas on an industrial scale in the US have had obstacles

of competition with cheap oil(at least to date), it is a dirty gas that

shortens the life of any engine used to burn it to create electricity, and

it needs warm temperatures to function correctly, which means in northern

areas a lot of the gas has to be burned just to keep the digester up to

temperature.

 

Decentralized useage utilizing direct burning in a warm climate is optimal

for biogas.