Cow Manure as Data Center Power Source

Garbage in Garbage out?

In all the applications I came across it is not necessary to import heat, Enough heat is generated by the fermenting process. It may also take more energy to get the heat at the right place than may be generated.

You may also find that the data capturers run heaters because it is to cold in the centre.

But go for it !!!!

I just want to know, where will they keep the cows? A pastoral environment might be a nice place for a data center. (and could be poetic, depending on whose/what sort of 'data' is being kept).

Seriously though, Hendrik is right. How will you get the heat away from the actual machines that generate it. Or will they be right next to the smelly enterprise of anaerobic manure digestion and methane production.

Didn't Gateway try this with Holstein's?

I thought it was cruel, using cows for packaging!

It is a common practice to capture the metane gas from undigested Paunch material and use the gas as a means for energy - gas turbine to electricty - hot water production

You will find that this is mainly around the Meat processing plants where they have access to alot of Paunch (undigested material)

We here in India have many bio gas plants in villages fed on cow dung called "Gobar Gas Plants".These plant generate Methane gas which is used for cooking as well as for lightening.These plants are subsidised by the local Governments as being alternate energy source.

Yes we Indians take bath early in the morning before starting our routine. Some of us do prayers after taking bath and have breakfast.

I have a Friend who was a diesel mechanic for the city tootsie roll factory (sewerage treatment facility).

The plan was to capture the sour gas (methane) and use it to fuel large diesel pumps and generators.

Due to the corrosive properties of this sour gas, scrubbers were required. These scrubbers required large amounts of water.

This begs the question: Does the requirement for water/scrubbers offset what appears to be a "free" source of energy?

The sewage treatment in fresno ca, flares off part of it's methane, as the local grid is not set up to handle their excess generating capacity. This tidbit came to light when I was interviewing for a position [doggie style judging by the pay]. reclaimed water was used for the scrubbers & was then reinserted to nearly the beginning of the process.

The inability to upgrade the grid had political not technical origins

Yeah,

Maintenance of the scrubbers on this fiasco became a political issue and consequently they were not maintained.

Big "cats" do not like raw sour gas. They are "display only" now.

My Friend got over it, and went on to work for Manitowoc.

Sounds like

Turd Farming &

Power Generation

don't play well together

it is not at all uncommon for divergent disciplines to undercut each other, the primary function winning out

"What other unusual process combinations might help address our energy needs?"

How about the waste heat driving a sterling cycle/vacuum pump on a shell still to lower the boiling point, reducing the required energy to manufacture ethanol?

After All Ethanol.

Perhaps then we should use thermo-electric cooling (TEC)

And everyone can discuss this?

Extension wire

Extension grade wires made of the same metals as a higher-grade thermocouple are used to connect it to a measuring instrument some distance away without introducing additional junctions between dissimilar materials which would generate unwanted voltages; the connections to the extension wires, being of like metals, do not generate a voltage. In the case of platinum thermocouples, extension wire is a copper alloy, since it would be prohibitively expensive to use platinum for extension wires. The extension wire is specified to have a very similar thermal coefficient of EMF to the thermocouple, but only over a narrow range of temperatures; this reduces the cost significantly.

The temperature-measuring instrument must have high input impedance to prevent any significant current draw from the thermocouple, to prevent a resistive voltage drop across the wire. Changes in metallurgy along the length of the thermocouple (such as termination strips or changes in thermocouple type wire) will introduce another thermocouple junction which affects measurement accuracy.

Oh, now it's got wires - I'd better put it "on topic"

But wouldn't pipes be a better idea for moving heat and gas?

maybe transfer the heat differential to Stirling generators