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Generating Power from Garbage Gas

Started by SwampDonkey, February 04, 2013, 06:34:36 AM

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SwampDonkey

Fredericton Regional Solid Waste Commission:

Methane gas is produced as garbage decomposes in a landfill. At most landfills, the methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, is simply burned off.

A 20-year deal with NB-Power will take effect in 2013. Over the 20 years it would be  in the excess of $20 million, net profit. The commission now has two generators installed and running. Generates 2.1 MW, enough for 2000 homes.

Some background information: http://www.frswc.ca/main.asp?297

In August, 2010, the Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission, which serves the Greater Saint John area, became the first working landfill in Atlantic Canada to supply green energy to the energy grid.

CBC News Clip
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

JuniperBoss

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense." --- Thomas Edison

Ianab

My buddy worked in the UK for a couple of years a while back. I think his job was maintenance on a setup like that. Basically they had a gas turbine generator in a shipping container. They would take it to an old landfill, plonk it down, wire it to the grid, and plumb in the gas feed from wells drilled into the decomposing landfill. The whole unit was pretty much portable, and when the gas supply started running out they could pack up and move it to a fresh supply.

Auckland city does a similar thing on their old landfills, but the main reason there was the gas kept seeping into the storm water drains and they kept randomly exploding  :o. By extracting the gas and burning it in a portable generator it solved 2 problems.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Paul_H

Salmon Arm BC

There is one here just 20 minutes from our house that cleans the gas and pumps it into the grid.
Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

JuniperBoss

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense." --- Thomas Edison

SPIKER

That is becoming pretty popular anymore and maybe more so 10 years ago when Nat Gas started to creep up in price.   Our company (well not mine anymore as I was downsized last Thursday) built some rigs designed specifically to install pipes into older UN piped landfill places to help extract methane and to test for what kind of hazardous stuff might be rotting down in the landfills.   The NEWER landfills all have all the liners and installed pipes to collect the gas/water seepage stuff to collect and make electricity.   there are even several factories that are made next to them to use the methane gas directly.

Mark 
I'm looking for help all the shrinks have given up on me :o

Ron Wenrich

We had a guy start to do that back in the late '70s on the local dump.  He used 671 Detroits that were converted to run on methane, I believe.  Farmers are now doing it with methane from manure. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

SwampDonkey

Farmers here spread the manure on the land. ;) We actually don't have many beef farms left, a few scattered dairy farms. But, these farms are using every bit of bi-product for fertilizer that can be scrape up off the ground with the fertilizer bills getting bigger and bigger.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Ron Wenrich

These farmers do the same thing.  They just get some methane off of them before they spread it on the fields.  You can't spread everyday. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Al_Smith

What few dairy farms that are left in this area knife the manure into the ground .

Fact odd as it might seem they even limit the time frame that horse manure can be spread .Sounds like a bunch of horse chit to me or would that be called BS depending on how you look at it .

Maybe 20-25 years ago a bunch of PT Barnum type hyped up super salesmen conned a few farmers into installing methane generaters but I'm not so certain any of them paid off in the long haul .I imagine that same bunch by now has conned their sons and daughters who now run the family farm into wind turbines .

There's always an angle it just changes from time to time .Some of those well to do farmers got caught up in a local "good old boys club" thing and lost a minimum of 50 grand a piece in a local ethanol plant that declared bankrupcy it less than a year in production .All that is except the guy that started the whole thing from day one .How nice !

Woodcarver

A dairy a couple of miles from our place has a digester.  They produce the electricity for the farm and sell the excess to the power company.

We buy pick-up loads of the solids from the digester to use on our garden and flower beds.  At $20.00 a load it's a fairly inexpensive soil amendment.
Just an old dog learning new tricks.......Woodcarver

Al_Smith

I assume the solids mimic well decomposed  manure from something like a situation from years ago from well bedded  cattle that layed for years in a barn before it was hauled out .

The stuff has almost no offensive odor to it and grows a wonderfull garden if you keep it well watered .Grows big weeds too .

SwampDonkey

I can't really see the payback on the manure pile gimmick. It would have to be a huge operation and slow turnover operation from cow to field. The little piles of manure I see here around barns wouldn't produce a whole lot. The local beef farmer who was near here hauled manure year round from the barn. Often it was piled at the ends of fields until spring then spread when the ground dried up. Or if the snow was late coming, just spread away. Nice mess from those piles in the spring to go out with the melting snow to the nearest brook.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Al_Smith

It was only after two major events that they  legislated manure management policies .

The first being the mega dairy farms they built in Paulding and Putman countys Ohio a well as few others scattered hither and yawn .The surface water poluted the streams  ultimently causing   huge alga spore populations in Grand Lake St Marys Ohio and made it unfit to use .

It wasn't that they didn't know it could happen but more so they ignored the fact for years and years until drastic measures needed to be enacted .

About the only way to punish the offenders would be to dig them up and grind their bones for concrete mix for whatever good that would do ,not much .

red

there is a second book to the Forest Gump story called Gump & Co. about 1995 Forest had all the answers
Honor the Fallen Thank the Living

Ron Wenrich

Long sections of dead areas in the Chesapeake Bay come to mind about manure runoff.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

maple flats

Our local County landfill is doing the same (Madison Co., NY). They are producing 1.3 megawatts from methane gas. They also have a 40 koliwatt solar array laid on the south facing side of one of the trash mountains. I really like to see projects like this, using waste to generate energy.
logging small time for years but just learning how,  2012 36 HP Mahindra tractor, 3point log arch, 8000# class excavator, lifts 2500# and sets logs on mill precisely where needed, Woodland Mills HM130Max , maple syrup a hobby that consumes my time. looking to learn blacksmithing.

Al_Smith

There have been a lot of grand plans over the years of just what to do with with the trash .Some with merit and some without good forethought . .

One of the later happened near Columbus Ohio using a solid waste burner complete with scrubbers etc. to burn garbage and make steam to turn a turbine and generate power .

I guess it went okay except for a few partly empty propane cylinders that blew up the burner on several occasions .They snuck passed the devices that were supposed to prevent that .Classic example of the best laid plans of mice and men .

Randy88

Any use of garbage in my book is a plus, and any livestock farm that can utilize the methane is another plus, it might not be cost effective to produce electricity today off methane but in the future it can do two things, produce electricity and eliminate odors, which are the two driving factors for famers to do it at all.   

I'm not sure cost effective should be even in the equation when it comes to landfills, lets just declare they do it, no different than they do for farmers or anyone else, and utilize the product [garbage] while eliminating contamination of the environment.   

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