Could PigWaste-sourced BioGas replace Diesel to provide Heat & Light?

Hi manilaman

This suggestion about Pig Farm waste based CHP system could be the answer to your "client" industry. While the basic inputs in your presentation is generally OK, since APIX-SEP would work on the basis of rain Water Harvesting for all water requirements, your input on the annual rainfall in the region would be needed to make a "sketch proposal" with general input/ output presentations.

Also, it would be proper for us to consider the availability of the various weeds/ non agricultural plants/ grasses etc, some of which could be advantageously utilized through our SELF REGENERATIVE RECYCLING. The End-products are: Biogas for Energy, Biochemicals, Bio-Fertilizer.

Await your info on all these

pvhramani

If I am to understand "Rain Water Harvesting" as some kind of "Catch-Basin Water-Containment", I believe that there is none. Most PigFarms in the Plant's Vicinity draw Underground Water with their own Water Wells. I don't believe that a Municipal-owned Pipe-Network exists in the area. But again, I'm not certain. I'll double-check my info on the Issue-of-Water.

Again, I must repeat that the Prospect Plant's location is NOT a Vegetation Area. It used to be that there were Ricefields. The General Area is turning into PigFarms. Any and all Weeds, et. al. are not centrally collected - and simply left to rot on the ground. I will re-visit my Prospect's PlantSite Vicinity once again - hopefully within this week.

For now, my principal concern is to ascertain if the 1/2 hectare proposed BioGas PlantSite would be sufficient to contain the PigWaste Reactor(s).

Thanks and Regards.

Hello

The 1/2 Ha plant site would be okay for the Biogenic system envisaged

Best reagrds

Hari

I think you forgot Bacon, Ribs and Ham as value added by products.

Hello RCE

This is the Flow Diagram.

Would you kindly let us have an idea how your by-products would come into our scheme of things please? I am sure manilaman would be delighted

I await your ENGINEERING Feed back

pvhramani

You forgot the earlier step of the feed to the pig, the pig to the market, the crap to the biogas plant. Though i guess they pigs will be grown no matter what happens to the waste. By the way it is definitely not the cleanest or greenest energy generation, you are still making a carbon fuel source, which is actually a much worse greenhouse gas and losses (releases from) in such gas systems always occur. Methane gas is by mass mostly carbon, and when you burn it to get heat energy, you also generate CO₂ and a little bit of stray CH₄ that doesn't get oxidized (there is no 100.0000000...% buring efficiency). Also how do you scrub the CO₂ and H₂S, would it require the use of any calcium or magnesium products made from the process of driving CO₂ off of limestone or dolomite. Where does the CO₂ removed from the limestone go? Additionally, this seems to assume 100 % conversion of biomass to methane, i suspect the conversion is much much less, thus there is relatively not degradable solids that must be disposed of. And what happens to all the nitrogen in the waste stream in the forms of nitrate, ammonium, organic nitrogen sources. Wouldn't the nitrogen be a waste. In the US nitrogenous wastes are regulated when they are derived from a CAFO (of course fertilizers are not really regulated). Use of the solids as fertilizer then requires a guaranteed source for land disposal (usually mean ownership of a lot of land to have that guarantee) and applications at agronomic rates. You need temporary storage and containment for the biosolids while they dry and await land disposal. There are time restrictions on how long you can retain such wastes in a temporary storage facility. Plus now with biosolids storage and land disposal, you will need a groundwater monitoring program to verify applications do not exceed agronomic rates and pollute water. The waste stream from methane production alone could have more regulations than a CAFO, since there is usually a small size limit for regulating CAFOs as they are viewed as a form of agriculture and small ag is exempted. This is why large Dairies look at these processes, they alredy have all the regulations, monitoring and waste disposal processes in-place. Industrializing an ag process could make you step from something exempted to something regulated.

Well, probably it isn't that clean, because of all the manure you need to move.

I think it is a "clean source of energy" because the carbon released in this process in fact is part of the normal carbon process in our planet. The problem currently affecting our planet is that we're pumping underground carbon, burning it and then releasing it to the atmosphere. This last point is clearly out of the carbon process, thus increasing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere.

But I will give you this point; it isn't 100% clean, due to the fact that you need to collect the manure from neighboring pig farms. I suppose they will be transported on a vehicle with a ICE that does have a carbon print. So the carbon from the transportation of the manure from a pigfarms to the biogas facility will have some carbon print.

We have many Cow Dung gas plants here in India. They are operating very well. Even Govt. offers subsidy for such plants. I dont know about Pig Waste Plants may be they can too generate gas.

Here's additional info on the WATER situation. Apparently, WATER is a problem. My Prospect hauls "Drinking Water" some 20 kms away. 2 attempts (750 ft deep) at drilling Underground Water failed to hit the Water Table. It seems to me that, if any kind of water will do, then siphoning River Water would have to be resorted to. The nearest RiverBank is about 5 kms away.

Oh, man! I suppose since the pigs are already being raised on these small farms, the problems of solids disposal, water pollution, and odor already exist, and are being addressed. If not, then gear up for some additional variables to be introduced into your equations!

At least it is a deep water table, less risk of impacting it and likely less regulations protecting it from surface releases. I am not sure about the Phillipines, but in the US in states utilizing the CEQA model and similar california regulations, industrial activities will frequently be more regulated and restricted than agricultural (especially small rural agriculture). So the same waste stream could be nearly unregulated on a farm, but strictly regulated at a industrial plant or facility (in truth it is actually just that the agriculture is exempted because of politics). Also there is the matter of the size of the localized waste stream, and the concentration of waste. Larger localized volumes of waste can change regulatory status, relative to the multiple smaller sources of the waste. so 5 pig farms may not have any regulations applied but 1 pig farm the size of those 5 might. Additionally any concentration of waste components could exceed a regulatory limit and bring them under regulatory oversight.

In the State of North Carolina in the United States a Pilot Program involving 50 Pig Farms has begun this year. I believe the hands on study experiment is being run out of North Carolina State University. I believe I earlier suggested APIX-SEP submit designs for the NCGreenpower Grants. In fact I am sure that I wrote a note about it as soon as I knew of it providing e addresses.

There are very many pigs in NC. There are so many pigs in North Carolina that between Wilmington and Raleigh on a motorcycle the air for 50 miles came close to burning my nostrils. It would be a much nicer ride if the ammonia?, pig piss smell, was taken out of the air, if nothing else was done at all.

I should think that some variation of the work Rick Watson made us aware of in use in the Prisons of Rwanda will end up applied to Pig Wastes.

In Manila Man's project he makes clear there is a water problem. Around here a 200 foot water well is about as far as I've heard of. From what I hear the deeper you go, the more salt in the water you get.

At some point in all work, "It costs what it costs, and takes what it takes."

There must be some water around, or the pigs and the humans wouldn't be there at all. I have not fully grasped how much water is around. Either the river water is needed, or it isn't, is my point.

The drought here got so bad that there was not even dew on the grass in the morning. You could not have even put up a plastic tent to collect dew as you are supposed to do when adrift in the sea on a lifeboat, and gotten water.

When People Were Shorter, And Lived By The Water, is the name of a comic rock band my brother was friends with.

Ironically Island people depend on rain for drinking water. There is an old saying about that. Water is not necessarily water is the point.

My news is that where I live work is being done at the Engineering Schools about the best things to be done with Pig Wastes. (NC State & A&T are the Unversity System of the State of North Carolina universities that are Engineering Schools.)

My overall suggestion as far as Pig Wastes, and APIX-SEP is that we make solid contacts with the principles of the Academic institution so as to achieve mutual benefits all around.

Frankly I've never really understood how that works as far as patent rights are concerned. Gwen may have some insights in that area that I don't.

If the pigs need more water for a total system, moving the pigs and the people together towards the river may be one solution. An Aquaduct may be the other, and then I wonder if train or trucking would work out.

Dew Water Collectors are a possiblity with substancial limitations as far as I know.

Thanks TRANSCENDIAN for your info on the NC University Project.

Let me now give an update relative to your comment: "There must be some water around, or the pigs and the humans wouldn't be there at all. I have not fully grasped how much water is around". I did mention in my 1st Post that PigFarms must have their own respective WaterWell to draw water for their own PigFarm needs. Why 2 attempts of drilling 750 ft deep at my Prospect's PlantSite failed to hit the Water Table - that, to me, is simply "Bad Luck". Yesterday, I was able to talk to the President of the PigFarmers Assn in the vicinity - and he affirmed my contention that indeed his membership do have their own WaterWells. But he added that hitting the Water Vein is more luck than Science. Sadly, my Prospect did not have luck on his side.

Smelly!

look up the new process to turn pig urine into plastic! it's cool.. very true... a ways off?

_________________

Do I smell an opportunity to do a test?

If so, you might get a roll of plastic tube or just a sturdy garbage bag and do a small scale test? ... put your 'byproduct' into it. just Google the other ingredients that would make it just right.. add them.. (not much difference from the cow process I'd imagine?)

use some duct tape and put sealed tube in the sealed bag... (with room for expansion)... now just wait a few and let the bacterial stew do some chewin'.

when it gets good an puffy, open the valve, safely light the exiting gas and heat your office!

ok.. perhaps, not, but you could at least know your pigs diet is useful for more than tasty bacon.

If you're impressed with the results of your home brew. It won't be long before you are able to make a confident investment.

If you loose sleep at night, you can have a gas analysis done after a professional test brew.

Production of biogas from pig waste is widely carried out in Thailand, and is mostly used through converted diesel generators. In 2007 they captured in these systems of a Co2 equivalent of 600,000 tonnes. This is an environmentally friendly process as the methane would otherwise be released anyway ... in Indonesia we can sell carbon credits from such systems (Kyoto protocol) You will get about 50 kg of CH4 per pig per year (about 2000 m3 of methane per year) (... but very much dependent on the size of the pigs of course) Pig waste is usually entering these systems at about 1.5% solids (ie - with a lot of water!) but pig farms are usually pretty wet places anyway, and you would be well advised to collect the liquid runoff in a tank (ie think collection tanker, not truck ... but the disadvantage would be you are transporting a lot of water... the Thai farms simply gravity feed it and use it on their own farm ... economy of scale))

These are very simple lagoon systems whcih operate well because of the very stable temperatures in the region.

Biogas is about 25 to 30% CO2, but enough of this can be scrubbed out by simple water scrubbers to run a motor.... (and this CO2 is only what would have been released to the atmosphere anyway)

my email: mark.eastaugh@gmail.com