Is this an alternative energies forum or what?

[mcrover]

Im wondering,

Are we meant to be discussing alternative energie or just pandering to peoples pie in the sky dreams.

That Hydrogen fueled vehical thread is just bull****.

1 person posted a pick of his system but then doesnt back it up with any data to proove it works and if I ask for proof Im being unreasonable?

I dont get it...

How the hell is it unreasonable to question if something works?

If I ask for data on how a solar energy system works Im sure someone will post it up or i can find it on the net myself from reputable sorces and not just "mine produces this much " as thats not data, thats not proof and thats not helpful.

How about when people post up these whacky ideas, they be prepared to answer some questions or provide proof that their **** works rather than just getting their back up and cracking it.

At the moment through work I am getting quotes on running our machinery sheds and workshop on solar with the plan in the future to do the same at the club house as well as feeding back to grid to supply chargers for the golf buggies off peak to reduce costs in electricity as well as Ive just got a local supplier of Bio Diesel to give me a now reasonable price for supplying Bio Diesel for most of our machinery.

So this subject is extremely interesting to me but Im not wanting missleading rubbish information on these subjects, I need cold hard proof as does anyone else heading down this sort of path.

Im not planning here on a couple of thousands of $ worth of system Im talking 10's of Thousands (Probably close to $50K for stage 1 if not more) and I need to know what outputs people are getting in the real world not just what you should get on paper.

If there was any sort of proof offered in that thread then I would have gone and built a system my self and tried it out but Im not one for throwing money away so I question if it works first or I state why it wont work.


I could keep going on this for ages but I know the people reading this wont actually bother reading the whole thing, they will just skim it and then assume they got what I was talking about and then post some sort of insulting post saying I dont know what Im on about so I wont continue this post anymore.

[EchiDna]

well I guess you could always tap that ready supply of landfill gas under you house to run a small generator and get "green" power for nix :)


on a serious note, go to one of the CERES open days in brunswick www.ceres.org.au or read all the info on www.ata.org.au for a start...

are you looking for cold hard proof that solar works, or cold hard proof it will save you money? lastly, even if someone does give info for their system, it means nothing for your own location as the sun position, wind strength and frequency and local council regs vary so much...

[mcrover]

well I guess you could always tap that ready supply of landfill gas under you house to run a small generator and get "green" power for nix :)

Funny you should say that, the Hallam tip is on our Nth boundry of the golf course and is due to be filled in soon and be turned into a green belt so yeah, run the machines on Methanol.

Can that be done id imagine it could?

If so how as after you capture it do you compress it?

Compressed does it liquify?

How does it burn?

[p38arover]

I've just read through the original (locked) thread. I agree with mcrover, he asked for some proof. None was forthcoming. The original poster got miffed, took his bat and ball, and went home.

Looking at the pix, I'd be extremely skeptical that it would do anything except drain the wallet of the purchaser. Unfortunately, it's well known that anyone who installs any sort of fuel saving mod to their car appears, in the short term, to get an improvement owing to, probably, an altered driving style. (Placebo effect?)

These improvements don't last as the driver reverts to their normal style of driving.

That said, I'd like to see the long term fuel consumption figures for pre- and post-fitting, not just a couple of trips.

[drivesafe]

Enough folks, I have no knowledge of this subject and have no intentions of getting into the facts or fiction of it and the thread was not locked because of info gaps or what ever, the thread was locked because of the manor in which a number of people have responded.

I might add, I have also received a number of complaints from others that have read the thread and come to the same conclusion.

I would be one of the worst offenders when it comes to getting into an argument but if people can’t be civil, go to some other web site, it’s just not acceptable here.

[JDNSW]

Funny you should say that, the Hallam tip is on our Nth boundry of the golf course and is due to be filled in soon and be turned into a green belt so yeah, run the machines on Methanol.

Can that be done id imagine it could?

It can be done - is being done, for example in a large landfill south of Sydney. It is extremely doubtfull whether it could be done economically on a small (less than megawatts) scale though. And even there the economics depend on explicit or implicit subsidy

If so how as after you capture it do you compress it?

You don't - you use it to run diesel or turbine engines to generate electricity.

Compressed does it liquify?

No. Not at normal temperatures. The methane generated is the same as natural gas, liquified by cooling for export. Has to be done on a very large scale to be economical - and on this scale the capital involved is beyond all but the very largest companies. It can also be converted to methanol, a process that is less efficient, but less capital intensive. Still has to run on a scale of at least hundreds of tonnes a day to be economic.

How does it burn?

Same as compressed natural gas, or the stuff that comes out of the pipes in some cities round the country.



Hope the above answers your questions.

John

[mcrover]

Thanks John I had no idea it was like natural gas.

They just said on stateline that the methane from the dump thats an issue here at cranny at the moment is putting out around 1300ltr/hour so maybe they need to get some sort of plant in to retreive it and feed it back into the houses through their heaters and stoves lol.

I doubt it is something that would be worth it at the moment but maybe in the future it will be a source of gas that can be utilised.

[mike 90 RR]

Thanks John I had no idea it was like natural gas.

They just said on stateline that the methane from the dump thats an issue here at cranny at the moment is putting out around 1300ltr/hour so maybe they need to get some sort of plant in to retreive it and feed it back into the houses through their heaters and stoves lol.

I doubt it is something that would be worth it at the moment but maybe in the future it will be a source of gas that can be utilised.

In Perth we have a Rubbish tip in the hills called .... Red Hill waste station

They have leveled the rubbish into a land fill area and put a sand layer on top
They then lay pipe on top of fill
Then cover with plastic membrane
Cover with sand layer

Methane comes out of the ground .. hits the plastic layer and is forced up the collection pipes

Pipes are fed to tanks for collection to feed a generator

Unsure if this setup still is working as I haven't been to this tip for 10 years

Mike

[p38arover]

Cranbourne, here we come!

A lot of gas waiting to be collected.

[Tank]

Thanks John I had no idea it was like natural gas.

They just said on stateline that the methane from the dump thats an issue here at cranny at the moment is putting out around 1300ltr/hour so maybe they need to get some sort of plant in to retreive it and feed it back into the houses through their heaters and stoves lol.

I doubt it is something that would be worth it at the moment but maybe in the future it will be a source of gas that can be utilised.
Methane gas really needs to be captured, Methane is 23 times a more potent GreenHouse Gas (GHG) than Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane is probably the largest single GHG contributor, from man made tips and cattle and sheep herds.
Methane is not counted as a serious GHG contributor because the Boffins don't have a Protocol for measuring it, unlike CO2, so because there is no protocol it don't count as a true GHG but only as a GHG Equivalent, so if you cant measure it, it doesn't exist. Take burning wood for instance, the boffins at Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) quite brilliantly state that burning wood is GHG NEUTRAL, because the CO2 released is absorbed by replacing the tree that was cut down to provide the wood that was burnt. Problem is burning wood anywhere in the world is not GHG Neutral because the wood is not being replaced, we cut down much more than is ever replaced, so the CO2 is not being absorbed AND the tonnes of other more potent (than CO2) gasses like Methane and Nitrogen Oxides and others are not being taken into account.
So if the peak Australian GHG organisation (AGO) can't get it right, what chance have we of ever fixing Climate Change, sorry for the rant, but there is an untapped (at the moment) potential bonanza in Methane Powered power stations and it is largely under utilised, Regards Frank.

[mcrover]

I didnt realise that it was such a big problem.

I love hearing greenies and vego's go on about how cows are killing the earth with the Methane thing, I normally coment that :

a. Kangaroo's fart too
b. What are we meant to do with cattle, sheep and all the other animals, kill them all off?

And now I know that the Methane is such a problem then how much methane would all those rotting carcusses from all the animals that fart produce?

I feel good about my wood fire though as at the golf club where I get my wood from, we plant on average about 4:1, 4 new planted tree's to 1 old rotten one or Pine tree cut down.

But then we stack them in a big pile and burn them......:eek:

Just got the power bill, this 1/4 we have produced 1.24 tonnes of green house gasses apparently.

We pay extra to be using wind power etc so why is it that were still producing so much?

Or isnt that much in comparison to most?

Damn, just farted, what can I do to neutralise the effects of the methane.......I dont think spraying glen 20 is good for the enviroment either :p

[Tank]

I didnt realise that it was such a big problem.

I love hearing greenies and vego's go on about how cows are killing the earth with the Methane thing, I normally coment that :

a. Kangaroo's fart too
b. What are we meant to do with cattle, sheep and all the other animals, kill them all off?

And now I know that the Methane is such a problem then how much methane would all those rotting carcusses from all the animals that fart produce?

I feel good about my wood fire though as at the golf club where I get my wood from, we plant on average about 4:1, 4 new planted tree's to 1 old rotten one or Pine tree cut down.

But then we stack them in a big pile and burn them......:eek:

Just got the power bill, this 1/4 we have produced 1.24 tonnes of green house gasses apparently.

We pay extra to be using wind power etc so why is it that were still producing so much?

Or isnt that much in comparison to most?

Damn, just farted, what can I do to neutralise the effects of the methane.......I dont think spraying glen 20 is good for the enviroment either :p
Bottle it mate, fuel of the future, wood will become too expensive to burn, the future of wood will be in making Ethanol, burning wood for heat is 10X more polluting than a coal fired power station for the same amount of heat.
A modern, fuel efficient, catalytic controlled small car requires about 18 trees to be planted/annum to sequester the CO2 produced over that period, but this still doesn't take into account the GHG Equivalent (GHG Eq.) gasses (Methane, Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Monoxides) released at the same time.
So just measuring CO2 is a TOTAL con, Methane after a period in the Ozone layer converts to CO2, if you are not going to include GHG Eq. compounds, WHY bother, it is a total FARCE.
It's good that you plant trees at a 4:1 ratio, but if you wish to work out how many trees you NEED to plant to compensate for burning 1 full grown tree, here is a formula to work out how many trees you need to plant.
If you go back to the small, fuel efficient car which requires 18 trees/annum to compensate, then if you burnt that wood in your Domestic Wood Heater (DWH), then over a 9 hour period you emit more pollution than that small fuel efficient car would in a whole year. So for every 9 hrs of DWH operation you would have to plant at least 18 trees, so over a year it is disastrous.
A few Coal mines on the South Coast of NSW use the Methane released from the coal seam as an Axillary fuel in the coal trucks and to generate electricity to run the mine equipment, every town in OZ has the means to capture Methane from the Sewerage system to generate enough power to run their towns, Farts are the Future, Regards Frank.

[isuzurover]

a. Kangaroo's fart too
b. What are we meant to do with cattle, sheep and all the other animals, kill them all off?


Well Actually...

Kangaroos DON'T produce any Methane. They have bacteria in their gut which breaks down grass differently to cows and sheep.

There are scientists who are trying to adapt the kangaroo microorganisms so they can live in the stomachs of cows and sheep etc...

[Redback]

Cranbourne, here we come!

A lot of gas waiting to be collected.

No need to go too Cranbourne Ron, there's enough here for our power needs from time to time, if you know what buttons too push:D;)

[Lotz-A-Landies]

In Perth we have a Rubbish tip in the hills called .... Red Hill waste station ...

...Unsure if this setup still is working as I haven't been to this tip for 10 years

Mike
Mike that system is in common usage throughout the US particularly in California, where they have very strict regulations about leachate contaminating ground water which is frequently used for town water systems. The methane harvesting is usually used to generate electric power which in turn is used to operate a leachate treatment plant at the lower end of the dump, (the bottom of the landfill dumps are lined with collection systems laid before the dump commences operation,) excess power generated is supplied to the grid. Depending on the size of the landfill the methane can be harvested for decades.

In Australia many sewerage treatment plants operate from the methane harvested from the plant. The treatment plant run by Sydney Water at Ben Buckler, near Bondi being one.

Diana