Biomass for methane production?

[roberthathaway7]

I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this subject. I watch tons upon tons of biomass wasted around here in the form of municipal burning of storm wood and leaf collection, along with burning of scrap wood at sawmills etc. I know that there are huge industrious methods to this, but does anyone know anything about smaller set-ups? I would like to start small and hopefully grow a set-up so that I can run methane generators and sell electricity back to the grid and such. I would imagine that if you had the proper proposal that local representatives would love to help aquire some grant money if they can get there name on something that creates "green" jobs. It's a little out there, but I love to think about the possibilities! If nothing else it would be cool to have a small set-up and supply the gas for my own house. Oh I also have a lawn/landscape business and I think you can somehow switch propane powered Grasshoppers over to compressed methane, wouldn't that be sweet..

 

[ATH]

Gasification is the simplest form. It was popular to have wood-fired vehicles (using gasification) in Europe during WWII. There are some folks out there still doing it. It can be problematic in a stationary setting because the is some material that is not gasified that can settle if not shaken.

Search "wood gasification". (but it doesn't have to be wood...you could gasify your bananna peels or road kill as well).

 

[tomandjerry00]

Biomass Projects

I actually worked on a biomass project for a long long time. Bottomline: not yet financially feasible in the USA on its own.

There are a lot of livestock farmers who use their animal's waste for biomass and this can be financially doable, especially with government subsidies.

The main issues comes down a) what you are trying to turn into methane and b) what natural gas is selling for. With regards to the first point, most systems use bacteria to break down biomass into methane and other gases, filter it and then bottle the methane. Well if you have something the bacteria like to eat (sugar cane, feces, food waste, etc) at a constant supply, you can make a lot of methane and potentially make a little bit of money. But things like leaves, wood, yard waste do not yield nearly as much methane per ton of biomass. Once you factor holding costs, transportation, capital expenses, etc. it runs a very slim margin, even for sugar cane, if not negative. This is a major reason why Brazil can make ethanol so much cheaper than the US. A ton of sugar cane can make more ethanol then a ton of corn. To my second point, most of these factories run their filtered methane (essentially natural gas) into bottles for vehicles or run it straight into a generator for electricity. If you were a meat processing factory attached to a ranch in the middle of nowhere, you might be able to be self-sufficient and basically off the grid with your electricity needs running all the animal waste. But natural gas prices are far too low in the US to make bottling or even most electrical production feasible. The payoff time for most of the projects, even small scale, are decades and decades. While there are government grants available, they are few and far between.

You'd be better off trying to shred the stuff and sell organic compost....

 

[ATH]

If you want to go the animal waste route, you better check on the fertilizer value of animal waste. For example, I talked to a guy last week who gets a 15 bushel per acre bump in his soy beans from hog manure. Beans are about $14.40... so you are adding $215 per acre. But that is just the increased yield...there is another couple of hundred savings from not having to purchase "standard" fertilzers. I honestly don't know how much poo that is to get there.