Tuesday, October 21, 2008

small scale bio-gas energy plants


I've known Jeffrey Gale for a while now because I occasionally do some water colour painting with him. Originally, he's an architect who specialised in sustainable eco-projects. On his website, he published a design for bio-gas energy plant (above). About the plants:

"These plants can be built in new housing projects, sized appropriately. One medium-scale plant, served by a good P-H balance of kitchen wastes, lawn mowings and human toilet wastes (see note 1), can provide enough electricity and gas for up to 30 homes, as well as excellent organic compost and water effluent for use on gardens or allotments, or sold for neighbours and farmers locally. Fresh lawn mowings have one of the highest yields of methane gas of all organic wastes!

The decomposing of any organic wastes where air is present produces a majority of CO2 with little methane. So all landfills, compost heaps, septic tanks and most sewage works emit vast quantities of CO2 into our biosphere.

Meteorologists and cosmic scientists say that methane emissions are doing far more damage to our biosphere than CO2. Clearly there is also a huge opportunity now to lessen global warming and provide a highly efficient pollution free abundant source of decentralised energy for local communities in any part of the UK.

Unlike wind or solar power, Biogas does not rely on the whims of the weather, as it is completely reliable any season of the year. If these plants became widespread, they would also give a continuous supply of organic compost to boost organic farming, horticulture and gardening. The compost from my designs is semi dry and recoverable from lift out perforated metal trays, allowing water to gravitate to filter beds below. (Aerobic process.)

Windfarms and nuclear power are not the complete answer to our energy problems as these are inefficient and environmentally degrading."

Detailed images and further information can be found here: http://www.eco-architectureandplanning.com/permaculturedesign/index.html

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