The following article, for me, is another welcome example of the formerly fringe getting some acceptance in the United States. While this specific announcement is about more research, it does come with some action as described in the last paragraph.
In the 1970's I became familiar with methane digesters. At the time they were all home made devices - no off the shelf. Yet the idea is not some 1960s/1970s back to the land hippie fantasy from The Whole Earth Catalog. The following illustration is from a 1922 Popular Mechanics article about "marsh gas":
A quick Google search for "methane digester" brings up both home made versions and commercially available versions as well as some great current examples of what is being done right now. As the second and third articles from Sweden in 2005 and The Netherlands in 2008 show, biomass is ready for prime time for both gas and electricity production. The technology is here now. What is needed is prodding for culture change - the businesses that are financially benefiting from current inefficiencies and polluting practices must be pushed to either change their approach or go the way of the dinosaurs.
U.S., 20 other nations team to research greenhouse gas emissions from farms By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post staff writer
Thursday, December 17, 2009; A03
The United States will join 20 other countries in a "research alliance" to better understand -- and prevent -- greenhouse-gas emissions from farms, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Wednesday.
Vilsack, in Copenhagen for the United Nations-sponsored global climate talks, said the Agriculture Department will increase its spending on farm-emissions research by $90 million over four years, to a total of $130 million.
The research, Vilsack said, will be shared with the other countries in the alliance.
Farm-related greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by the burning of crop residues, methane released from decaying manure and the digestive tracts of cattle, and gases emanating from fertilized soil. Together, agricultural sources account for about 6 percent of all U.S. emissions and 14 percent of emissions worldwide, U.S. figures show.
The department said the research money would be used to find new ways of tending fields and treating animal manure, to reduce their emissions.
Other countries involved in the research alliance are Australia, Britan, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vietnam, a news release said.
The statement came a day after the Agriculture Department announced an agreement with an association of dairy farmers intended to create a 25 percent reduction in emissions from dairy farms by 2020. The department said the agreement would involve efforts to increase the use of manure "digesters," which use the methane produced by decaying waste to generate electricity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601833.html
2005 announcement of bio-gas powered train in Sweden from The Local, Sweden's News In English (http://www.thelocal.se/):
Biogas train to launch in Sweden
Published: 17 Jun 05 11:59 CETThe world's first train to run on biogas, a renewable energy source made up of organic waste, will be inaugurated on Monday in Sweden, a country that has high hopes for biofuels.
The train will link the city of Linkoeping, just south of Stockholm, to the east coast town of Västervik some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. It consists of a single carriage that seats 54 passengers.
"This is the first train in the world driven by biogas," Carl Lilliehöök, the head of the company Svensk Biogas that owns the train, told AFP.
The vehicle is a converted old Fiat train whose diesel engines have been replaced by two Volvo gas engines, he said.
The engine was replaced "so that the train would be more environmentally friendly", since the combustion of biogas, like other biofuels, helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Biogas is made up of shredded plant materials and animal waste, which are then mixed with water in a tank. Once the waste has decomposed, a gas is formed that can be stored and used as fuel.
The train is equipped with eleven canisters containing enough gas to run for 600 kilometers (375 miles) before needing a refill, and can reach a maximum speed of 130 kilometers (80 miles) per hour, Lilliehöök said. The modus operandi was already a well-developed procedure, as some buses and cars in Sweden run on biogas, he said.
The country, home to nine million people, currently has 779 biogas buses and more than 4,500 cars that run on a mixture of petrol and either biogas or natural gas, according to the Swedish environment ministry.
Following a European directive urging governments to promote biofuels and other renewable energy sources for transportation as replacements for petrol and diesel, Sweden has decided to take the bull by the horns.
"Sweden has a rather ambitious target for 2005. That is (a) 3.0 percent" replacement level, Lars Guldbrand, an energy expert at the environment ministry, told AFP.
That goal is the highest among European Union member states, most of which have set a target of around 2.0 percent, he said.
Guldbrand said the new biogas train was a "very interesting" option and said he hoped there was a bright future for renewable energies.
"Oil is definitely becoming more expensive and more scarce, so we need something else," he stressed.
In addition to the environmental aspect, biogas has the added advantage that it can be produced locally and supply is not dependent on imports, Lilliehöök and Guldbrand both pointed out.
The biogas train is as environmentally friendly as trains can get. While electric trains are considered non-pollutant, they often draw their energy from unclean power sources. And all of the current methods for generating electricity have their problems.
Burning fossil fuels creates the majority of today's air pollution, which negatively affects air, water and land, which in turn affects our own health.
Hydroelectricity, where large dams are used to create energy from water, destroys ecosystems and kills wildlife. And generating power from the wind and sun only works when the sun is out or the wind is blowing, and wind turbines are often criticized for being ugly.
So a renewable energy source which can also be stored relatively easily, like biogas, looks like the perfect solution.
But according to Guldbrand, there are also snags: biogas is more expensive to produce than diesel, for example.
The new train, which cost Svensk Biogas 10 million kronor to develop, will go into in September, operated by SJ, the Swedish railway.
(AFP)
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1633&date=20050617
And in The Netherlands from 2008:
Today, Gerda Verburg, Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Food Quality,
opened the world's largest biomass power plant running exclusively on chicken manure. The €150 million project is owned and operated by multi-utility company Delta, cooperative DET, ZLTO and Austrian Energy & Environment A.G. (a consortium including Siemens Nederland N.V.) The facility will deliver renewable electricity to 90,000 households. The biomass power plant solves a key environmental problem in the Netherlands: managing the vast excess stream of chicken manure, which, until today, had to be processed at a high cost.
The biomass power plant will utilize approximately 440,000 tons of chicken manure, roughly one third of the total amount produced each year in the Netherlands. Many European countries, including the Netherlands, suffer under an excess of different types of animal manure that pollute the environment. Costly methods are used to avoid it being spread out over land, to process it or to avoid creating the excess in the first place. Using the manure as a carbon-neutral energy source has become the most efficient, environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective of all management options.
Interestingly, the biomass power plant is more than merely "carbon neutral". If the chicken manure were to be spread out over farm land, it would release not only CO2, but also methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. By using the manure for power generation, the release of methane is avoided.
The biomass power plant - unique because it exclusively burns chicken manure - has a capacity of 36.5MW, and will generate more than 270 million kWh of electricity per year. The facility is located on the Moerdijk in Zeeland, and will serve approximately 90,000 households.
Generating renewable and sustainable energy requires innovation. Innovating is costly and time-consuming, but important to make the transition from fossil to renewable fuels. The biomass power plant is one of the strategic components of our energy mix, which includes a wide range of renewable sources, as well as nuclear power. This diverse energy mix is needed to meet the ever increasing demand for electricity, but for us, building a smart and clean fuel sourcing strategy is more than meeting the consumer's demand, it is a matter of meeting our social obligations. - Peter Boerma, CEO Delta
The cooperative "Duurzame Energieproductie Pluimveehouderij (DEP)" (Sustainable Energy Production in the Poultry Sector) brings the chicken manure to the power plant. DEP has a member base of 629 poultry farmers, 70% of them operating in the south of the country. The power plant offers the poultry farmers an environmentally friendly, structurally sound and commercially interesting option enabling them to manage their production of chicken manure.
The Netherlands produces approximately 1.2 million tons of chicken manure per year. Until now, 800,000 tons of this amount was processed abroad, at high costs. One third of this amount will now be used in the biomass power plant. The ashes from the combustion of the manure are rich in phosphorus and kalium, and will be sold as a fertilizer with a high added value.
The most obvious question many people in Moerdijk raised is whether the large amounts of chicken manure, when transported to and processed in the power plant, would leave a stench. The engineers who built the facility took care to address this issue: all the manure is transported in airtight trucks and is only released for processing once the trucks have entered an air lock in the fuel processing area.
The power plant's construction began on august 28, 2006 and cost €150 million. The facility provides jobs to 25 people. The project is the result of a cooperation between Delta, the cooperative DEP, Zuidelijke Land- en Tuinbouworganisatie (ZLTO) and Austrian Energy & Environment A.G.
These partners, alongside regional and national government in the Netherlands, are now looking into building similar biomass power plants to deal with other excess streams of manure.
References:
Omroep Brabant: Verburg opent biomassacentrale Moerdijk [video and podcasts] - September 3, 2008.
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008/09/worlds-largest-biomass-plant-running-on.html
