Chicken Manure as fuel.

[lampliter]

I began reading Mother Earth News many moons ago and in one of the early issues I read about this guy in England who ran his car on the gas created by decomposing chicken manure. I think they said it was methane.<br>Has anyone ever heard of or done this? Would it work with human manure? I know human gas is flammable. Don't ask how I know. (Where do the children play)?<br>

 

[blars]

Natural gas is mostly methane, some city bus lines use liquified natural gas as fuel.&nbsp; It's not used as a long-haul fuel due to cost/weight/availablility issues.&nbsp; (It does have lower emissions.) <br><br>Some sewer plants burn the methane for either heat or electricity generation.&nbsp; Garbage dumps also produce methane, but not always in useful consintrations.&nbsp; Either may just burn it to get rid of it.&nbsp; Methane is a greenhouse gas, cattle produce lots of it.<br><br><br>

 

[Seraphim]

<P>We have a large dump in the area - Rumpkes - and you can see the pipes from underground burning off the methane at night. </P>

 

[karl]

Another Mother Earth story- Jean Pain ran his vehicles and cooked with methane he generated from wood chip/manure compost piles, he also ran loops of plastic pipe through the pile to heat water for his home heating and domestic hw. Really interesting and low tech that, though labor intensive, could work well for a small homestead.<br>The methane was captured with a polyethylene sheet over the pile and a series of truck tire inner tubes that could inflate with the gas. The only pumping was to fill tanks for his truck and tractor.<br>Methane digesters&nbsp; (Bio-gas) have been used for years in some parts of the world. <br>Ram Bux Singh did tons of research in the 60's and developed plans for family sized and up bio gas plants. ME news probably still sells the book.<br><br><br>

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

<P>We have a large dump in the area - Rumpkes - and you can see the pipes from underground burning off the methane at night. </P><P>

<b> Sound like you are describing a scene from the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. We have one here too.</b></P><P><b><FONT color=#00ff00 size=3>Dragonfly</FONT></b></P>

 

[Seraphim]

More like "Bored of the Rings" - an off color parody someone wrote back in the 60 s / 70s lol.

 

[romani10]

From my experience with chicken manure, circa 1968-'71, they mixed the stuff with diesel fuel in 55 gallon drums and made big "bangs."

 

[Mangyhyena]

Yep, chicken poop makes methane. I don't see methane as a great fuel for transportation, but a small digester made from 2 drums would be FANTASTIC for cooking fuel. Most gas burners can be easily converted to burn methane.
I read that food scraps work even better than feces for methane production.

Seems to me that a person could cook most of his/her meals with methane made from food scraps. Bet it would be easy to get scraps from a restaurant or bakery.

Methane can also fuel a generator. It would be difficult to produce enough methane to run a genny every couple days for battery charging, but if the methane were stored in, say intertubes and the generator was a tri-fuel setup, then maybe methane could fuel it once a week, supplementing the propane usage and saving some money. Not sure. That would take some research.

 

[VanTramp]

<p>We have a large dump in the area - Rumpkes - and you can see the pipes from underground burning off the methane at night. </p>

<div><br></div><div>I built a few of those big burnoff "flares" about 23 years back. Was cool to see my flaming creations on my way to Seattle in the mornings <img src="/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"> &nbsp;</div>

 

[VanTramp]

There are at least a few of the larger dairy's around that use methane to supply their electrical power. They have some creative ways to collect the manure while the gal cows are giving their milk then it goes through the digestion area and produces the methane which runs a large generator. They have it really well worked out for those particular style farms. I personally would prefer to do something with maybe alcohol for fuel if I was going to attempt creating it for myself.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>Besides, you know how many chickens you have to squeeze to get enough fuel for a road trip?&nbsp;</div>