Bio- diesel refining using waste Methane gas ?????

[Dutchman1]

O.K. Guys,

I'm going to throw this out there, and see what sticks.

It seems the biggest problem with the production of Ethanol or Bio-diesel is the cost of energy to process it.
Now when they make methanol from corn, the waste is used as cattle feed in some feed lots.
The enviromentalists are claiming that all the methane gas produced by these cattle and their waste (Manure) is a major part of greenhouse gases attributing to global warming. If this is correct there must be a lot of it produced, enough to destroy the earth if you read much of what some of them say.
Why don't we produce the ethanol and or bio-diesel, feed the by-product to the cattle, capture the methane gas, use it to help fire the plants producing the bio-diesel of ethanol, and eat the cattle as we will anyway, and replace them with new cattle to feed and then eat.
The capture of methane and useing it to fire powerplants is already being done here with some sucess, and has to be done anyway to satisfy environmental groups. The cattle have to be fed anyway so we can eat them. This may not provide all the energy requirements to produce Ethanol or Bio-diesel, but whatever part it does provide with lower production costs.
The bio refinery could be built next to the feedlot, the corn shipped to the refinery, bi-product pumped to the feedlot and fed to the cattle the manure and other ascaping gasses from the cattle capured and used to fire the powerplant that will augment the refinery's power needs.
I know, sounds to simple to me too, but you guys put your heads together and find the faults with it and see if we can figure it out. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]

[ACD2]

Isnt the gas produced by the cows fartng? I can just picture a cow with a gas mask on its butt to capture the methane. I think how they capture methane is from landfills. They plumb landfills with pipe to capture the methane and then collect it and send it off to be used. I dont know how they can do something like that with cattle other than plumbing the manure pile and having it in some enclosed structure, but knowing how hot manure can get since I have horses, piling up manure inside an enclosed structure can lead to some serious heat problems. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]

[scottefontay]

Or heat source in stead of problem. I have often thought of coupling a radiant heating system with a compost pile on a plumbed concrete pad. Using the latent heat from compost would be a great thing to do. If I were to start a small scale Biodiesel business I would also compost, as heat source and glycerin disposal alternative.

Also, methane is not used to generate biodiesel. Biodiesel or crappy oil can be burned to power a plant directly, or even the glycerin. Some ethanol operations in development have lignin pellets as a biproduct that can be used to fire a plant also. Its called industrial ecology, the coupling of different systems to maximize effciency and minimize energy and other resource inputs.

[Dutchman1]

Yes cow farts do produce methane gas. Also the manure does. We already have at least one cattle operation in my area that I know of that has set up a system for capturing the methane gas from the manure and using it to generate electicity. I was not suggesting that bio-diesel be made "from" methane, but useing methane to power the production facility that would make the methane.

[Spencnaz]

I think the device you are looking for information on is called a methane digester.

Many small villages in India and other countries are powered by composting manure and plant materials and collecting the 'biogas' that is generated.

Many large municipal gensets are powered using gaseous fuels such as methane.

Connecting the two technologies into biodiesel production is a good idea, perhaps someone is doing that right now.

[dssamp]

A little off subject...mabye time for a new thread, but:
If i remember correctly when I spent some time in LA they had power plants that burned household trash. Seems that anything that could not be recycled but was combustible was sent to these plants instead of landfills. Same thing could be done with manure, cow-hides, jeeze even bones burn. Just a matter of investment from big companies and making it profitable.

[scottefontay]

Yeah, I really don't think that this discussion is off topic. Think about it. Aside from the immediate economic benefits of biodiesel and svo there are significant environmental benefits. What makes any commodity cost more is inefficiency and waste. I am turning out 200 gallon batches of biodiesel. I have built three stainless steel processors (old tomatoe cannery equipment) and I feel the sting of wasting the glycerin, pluggin in my electric heaters and burning propane to heat my batches. My tanks are pretty well insulated so they hold their heat well.

One major thing that opponents to biofuels say is that the fossil fuel inputs are still significant. But we know that tractors can run on biodiesel (make fuel and use it). I propose that small scale biodiesel plants, locally organized (coops?) and properly zoned can use minimal outside energy inputs to heat with. People make sawdust glycerin logs. Burn them in a woodstove, put a boiler type unit on it an plum your reactors, your settling tanks, the washtanks, the drying tanks at the appropiate locations/configurations. We're only talking getting the water to 180 degrees, tops (unless your grease is wet). If your concerned about air quality, the smoke out the stack can be pushed and through a tank of the initial wash water, removing large amounts of the particulates, and sent to the STP. An industrial sized waterb bong. I know this is possible on a realistic scale for peeps like us. Just a thought...

[jprensink]

Methane digesters are super expencive pay back is like 20 years or so. They do work, put your manure into a big building heat it up and take the gas off of it. What gas you have left over after heating the manure can be fed to a genset to make elc. if you have alot of money laying around and need a tax wright-off go for it but it is too long of a payoff for most people-business unless they get a huge grant from the gov.

Waste methane gas? If they can get it they burn it trust me.

[Dutchman1]

Ashshade,

I know your point well. What I'm triing to do is see how hard it can be to get people to look at the total picture. You are only looking at the cost of one small part. Yes the digester is expensive for the return. But here we have the problem of disposing of the manure and other wastes. Now instead of spending the money on disposal, such as trucking it to someone else's back yard. take the savings there and deduct them from the digester expense. Plus the NIMBYs here that moved into the country for the beauty of the pastures and fields, now decide they don't like the smell and the dust. They would love the concept of doing away with it as much as possible, so this would benefit them and they would probable let slide a little tax incentive to help make it work ( did I just say TAX???) Hit me with something.. Ideas is what I seek, after all there are some damn intelligent folks in this group.

[jprensink]

I'm not against digesters, all I am saying is they are spendy up front and in the long run. You still have manure to haul out just not as much and it dose smell better. I'm not shure if you are talking about small scale or large. On farms that have them the electicity produced is not enough for the farm to be independent of the power grid, so there are not huge sums of energy to be had. If you can figure out a way for it to work that would be great. What are you thinking, confinement-digerster-biodiesel right next to eachother, how large?

While I was thinking about this I realized thay digesters use internal-combustion engines to gernrate electricity, so it might be more efficant to use the methane to heat something other than a cast iron block, like say biodiesel. Might work.

Are you having alot of trouble getting rid of manure around the "new country folk". Funny rural america is a little different than on the TV, who woulda thought. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]

[scottefontay]

The manure , as well as compost in general, generates a substantial amount of heat and could be used to heat the process, if not completely it would be significant.

[jprensink]

True but you might be supprised how fast you can suck all the heat out of a pile, then again I might be supprised how long the heat will stay in. You would have to be carefull how cool the pile got because it feeds on itself, if you got it too cool it would not turn into compost, or take along time to do it Anyways a compost pile and a digester are two very different things.

[ACD2]

Didnt think of that, hmm I think that would make an excellent way to heat my workshop during the winter since I store up the poop pile during the winter and it gets so hot it smokes.

I'm still laughing at the image of a cow with a gas mask on its butt! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Dutchman1]

If these countryfied ( is that a word?) city folks keep at it. You may be seeing a gasmask on a cow's butt. LOL

[scottefontay]

I was just thinking that a decent sized compost facility, properly layedout and plumbed could add asignificant amount of heat to a small commercial biodiesel facility. At a minimum heating the workspace and warming WVO stock in coold climates. I was envisioning insulated with radiant heat lines in the base slap, a roof of some sort, etc. I've seen somea large faciltities. Feeding the piles with some glycerin would kick up the reaction a bit too. An anaerobic digester is different monster all together.