BREAKTHROUGH IN POOP POWER

Manure, for readers unaware of it, is a BIG issue. When animal manure lays on the ground it decays and releases methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas (GhG). It is 20+ times as potent a GhG and contributor to global climate change as the CO2 that comes out of cars’ tailpipes and goes up coal plant smoke stacks. Some estimates put agricultural waste-associated methane emissions at as much as 10% or more of the global climate change problem.

BUT, when animal husbanders collect animal waste and ship it to biogas facilities, the gases are captured and used to generate electricity. This solves 2 pressing contemporary problems at once: (1) What to do with the waste, and (2) What to do for New Energy.

Biogas facilities put tons and tons of poop into methane digesters where bacteria eat on it and release its "essences," transforming it into an efficiently burnable gas.

When biogas is burned to make electricity it does release greenhouse gases but it substitutes emissions that the animal waste would have generated anyway for emissions from a fossil fuel. And the animal waste is largely plant sourced, making it a yet better deal, a more "closed loop."

Thus, it is vital to know all that it is possible to know about turning manure into biogas. Engineers at Washington University have been on the job. Guess what they found out? Stirring speeds the process. That’s an important breakthrough. It will make the methane digesters more efficient.

Next question: How much do you pay the guy whose job it is to stir the poop? (And what’s that job title?)

Important footnote, from the “hard times” file: In this time of skyrocketing energy prices (natural gas is going up just as fast as oil), investment in poop should be big, shouldn’t it? Yet construction of the $25 million White Hat Energy biogas plant in Clovis, New Mexico, will be delayed while Gibbs Energy works out sub-prime mortgage-related financial difficulties. Hard times come no more...

Important footnote, from the "don’t confuse the ethanol scam and the biogas plan” file: The report on the poop stirring breakthrough included a report on the financial failure of E3 BioFuels as well. But E3 Biofuels turns poop and other biomass into ethanol, not biogas and, as explained by the authoritative Robert Rapier (see Responsible Ethanol Goes Bankrupt), ethanol is not a good bet.

Most authorities have pretty well concluded that the best use for biomass is almost always biogas, not ethanol.

But seriously folks...It's a real issue. (click to enlarge)

Researchers eye farm waste as energy
April 17, 2008 (AP via CNN)

WHO
Washington University engineers (Professor Muthanna Al-Dahhan, research engineer); microorganisms that digest hog and cow poop and turn it into biogas; Gibbs Energy (Joe Maceda, President);

Just stir. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Professor al-Dahhan and other Washington University research engineers have concluded that the transformation of manure into biogas by microorganisms is facilitated by vigorous mixing.

WHEN
- The research was funded by a 2001 U.S. Department of Energy $2.1 million grant. (Good research takes time and money.)
- This study is seen as an important step toward the making of an efficient methane digester.

Schematic: The big picture. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- Washington University is in St. Louis, Missouri.
- Gibbs Energy’s White Hat Energy biogas plant is in Clovis, New Mexico.

WHY
- Manure is a troublesome pollutant of massive proportions from industrial-sized barns and feed lots but becomes a raw material for electricity-generating biogas when broken down by bacteria.
- The researchers used advanced imaging technology to study how microorganisms break down manure.
- The conclusion: Vigorous mixing speeds the process.
- Next step: To produce a simple waste treatment method for farmers and methane digester operators.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
- Professor Al-Dahhan: "Each year livestock operations produce 1.8 billion tons of cattle manure…Treating manure (with microorganisms) gets rid of the environmental threats and produces bioenergy at the same time. That has been our vision."
- Robert Rapier: They had a great idea. Use corn to make ethanol, feed the byproducts to cattle, digest the manure to produce methane, and use that to fuel the boilers. Complicated? Yes, but definitely a more sustainable way of producing ethanol - if they could pull it off… I had high hopes for E3 Biofuels, but I was pretty frank when people wrote and asked the question of why more ethanol plants didn't go the E3 route. Simple. It makes the plant more complex and more expensive, and it wasn't a proven technology. And it still isn't.