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Forum Index : Off topic archive. : Synthetic methane 4 storage
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| VK4AYQ Guru  Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Pete I couldn't find any pressure at 30 deg c rated for methane which is what the link was indicating a 95% content in the gas so it must be different to what we have as autogas. I have used propane and butane for various purposes in the past and realize that it at low pressure as a liquid, handy stuff. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
Propane, Is not the same as NG. its Vapor pressure at 100 D. F. is 175 psi. Its pressure is 0 at -44F. In the polar regions the tank must be kept near the fire to boil the liquid to sustain the flow of Gas. My choice would be a Hybrid Constant speed engine charging into a battery pack and powered by compressed N Gas. EDIT; Pete, The 3000 Psi came from a mixture of info for LNG and CNG. The Honda Civic GX uses Compressed N Gas and the tanks are crammed full to get reasonable range, the Honda gx has equivalent of 7.8 gallons gasoline at 3600 psi compressed N Gas. about 280 Highway Miles. Other Mfr's have Sold N Gas vehicles Using High pressure Tanks. From Honda spec. page. 
Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Greenbelt It would require a well insulated tank here in Australia as I have seen temp in the west of Queensland at sixty degrees in the midday sun. Would need underground insulated tanks to stay liquid with venting and all, but in practice if it was running a power station the boil off would keep it cool. I think it is suited more for power generation than mobile applications. As Pete says the propane or butane fraction is a better proposition there. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
In the diamond district of Antwerp you are not allowed to park your LNG-propelled vehicle in an underground car park. I do not know if this is a common prohibition all over Europe but it makes sense in this sensitive area. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Dom Sure makes sense to me as a gas leak is a destructive explosion when semi confined in a location like that. Without the stinky stuff as Pete calls it their would be no warning of gas buildup. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
HI BOB, The Change over to N Gas is Moving Quickly here in the states, I've noticed many oil co's are Buying up leases on property in the shale Gas Deposit areas. Shell Oil has spent 4.7 billion, See Link And this one for your area and a 20 billion $$ deal for OZ. Whetstone project AU. Lots of asset positioning Going on. If I was younger and richer I'd buy into some of this...Roe Edit; A few bucks invested in stinky stuff would be a winner stock.!! Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Greenbelt If only we had the money but all isnt as certain as we think as after the last crash and all the money we lost we are now looking at things that are real not speculative. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| Redman Regular Member  Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41 |
Natural gas is easy to make. 1000kg of dry mass = 10,000 kwh If you have 2 acres or more supplying your own home with gas energy and electricity would cost less than solar. You only need to "feed the beast" plant and waste matter every 2 days or so (10 min's work) The system is self sustaining producing soils of unparalleled quality and organic density. It has no pollution outputs (new CO2) and its completely sustainable. Soils -> Plants -> gasification (in a water tank if you like) -> solids and tea + methane) || | -> Electricity + heating gas | | > -> solids and tea are rapidly composted feeding the bacteria that feed your soils that feed your plants. Benifits. You create a third product from gasification that can be made into 2 products. What you have now Organic farm = Soils + plants = plant products + value adding What you get with a digester Soils + plants + plant products / value adding + gas (exported as gas or electricity / value adding) + compost tea (liquids from digester) + compost solids (compost base) + usable heat from generator. IN the USA where climate is colder and harsher than Australia the export heat from electricity export can be used to warm a greenhouse with ease. Reciprocal motors (a car motor used as a gas generator) or catalytic converter (a solid state, no moving parts converter) can transform 25% and 55% respectively of all gas into electricity, the rest is heat. All heat can be used. Your digester can be made to work faster using this heat to produce an optimal 60deg C in the digester. This kills all pathogens so you can place animal and human scat into the system and get clean safe end products you can safely dip you hands in. In summer you can use the heat to power a cooling system using passive refrigeration. So far you don't need to invest in much. Gasifier = big sealed insulated tank. Just get a plastic water tank, seal it and cover it with a recycled plastic insulation then wrap it in a protective dry cover. Electricity generator = second hand car motor ($400 AU) restored and gas conversion kit ($2000 AU but has a government rebate) + generator (you actually get 2 - car alternator + 4000 watt crank shaft generator (Genny is $2000) No gas is stored, so there is a low risk of explosion but you can store it if you want to. You can compress it to a liquid state (requires very good filtering) or you can store it in a big bag. In using a bag you can store up to 48 hours of gas with low risk. (though you would keep people and sparks away from it). Its old technology, this is just production on a grass roots scale using basic methods and technology. Third world nations have been doing this locally sporadically for 100 years. If anyone in Victoria Australia wants to form a co op business model stack on their farms PM me. I have some environmental science and IT training and am looking at creating a critical mass of organic producers to tackle the bulk food and energy industry head on in baby steps to quietly produce an entire new economy. If your land can produce enough green stuff / dry green stuff) you can apply for REC's based on an estimated average output. So if you get 100 tonnes of mass every year you can reasonably and safely claim 25,000 RECs @ $40 each assuming all energy produced is grid exported and remember you are losing 75% of the energy to heat using a reciprocal motor. sound nice?. 
I have transport sector knowledge (I have a truck license and fork lift license) I have been researching this for 4 years now I have basic IT programming ability which enables me to design automated gasification systems and monitoring (when the time comes). I have been working towards a career in agriculture and environment all my life with a passion for the Australian landscape. If I do anything it will be the best organic food production one could hope for with a positive benefit to the landscape and everything within it. I know I can produce food using low tech solutions that require zero chemical input. |
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| grub Senior Member  Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
Near here (Tamworth NSW) a local pig breeder set up a digester to use the pig excretment. The local council made him remove as it was "dangerous" and did not meet the "standard" effluent treatment they required. He had to run a full on sewage treatment plant and then ship away the treated effluent because the council said that it may get into the river system (about 20 miles away from his farm). Said farmer decided that the government really just did not want him producing pork and although they couldn't ban him from doing so, they strangled him with red tape until he had to quit (Standard Government Operational Procedure when they can't fully ban something). So if you do make something like you suggest make sure that the government is on your "side" first. Or keep it a secret and then plead ingorance if caught. |
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| Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41 |
The Australian government is much like America I am afraid. Too many insiders and "friends" within the public service. Sometimes its hard to see where America ends and Australia begins. Care for clean coal? Pig poop is full of Ammonia. Ammonia -> nitrite -> Nitrate = healthy plants. I suggest looking at Aquaponics and the DVD food.inc http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/ (I doubt its up for rental) The council should have been challenged to prove its case and the farmer should have used the Nationals and other groups to help lobby his case. The only output of a digester is fertilizer. 
If the farmer has enough land he can reduce the pig poop to liquid plant food and have the thing turn nutrients into pig food. Create an endless loop to which nature intended. Check out my hairy Greek friend costa This vid will not be available after a week. Other links http://www.youtube.com/user/bioconstructer#p/u/1/mCebM7a5XBQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYntOAAQZZ4&feature=related USA version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHK_qfjkYg8&feature=related |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
HI All I worked on a pig far development with 500 pigs in the 70's it was a full bio cycle setup with methane gas digester a gas colometes storage and a liquid waste disposal system and it was truly amazing what can be done. There was enough gas to run the power plant in total over 100 kwh on a large converted petrol engine with a turbo fitted, and the houses and cooking of food for the pigs, it was on a 500 acre farm and took about 10 acres most of the farm was dedicated to growing food for the pigs, the grain and corn along with pumpkins where huge. The cooling water from the generator warmed the pens in winter making it a lot more friendly for the pigs until their final day of course. He was trying to convert the tractors to run on methane as well don't know how that went as I moved away to QLD. He also had a perkins diesel 6-354 running on gas as well as a backup. several smaller engines worked the pressure wash system and circulation pumps in the digester. I dont know of any trouble with the council at that time but they weren't as stupid in those days. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
The Chinese are using a lot of digesters and the gas for cooking as firewood is scarce there in some areas. The stink caused by burning the digester gas coming from the "rotten egg gas" component or H2S is ameliorated by using iron filings to "soak up" the sulfur component, something similar to H2S + Fe = FeS + ? At Carnarvon (NW WA) a pig farmer irrigated his feed lot with the liquid waste water coming from the piggery; the council did not complain about the stink nor about a possible pollution of the Gascoyne River next door. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Don In the one I worked on years ago the sewer gas was passed through white granular substance then bubbled through alkaline, I think, solution to minimize the smell the gas going into the engines was untreated as was the pig kitchen where the pig food was prepared. it used a boiler and steam kettles for preparation, I worked on a lot of different parts of it and the smell was much lower than conventional piggeries by a large margin, mostly by the attention to cleaning the pens and waste digestion, the effluent was put into a secondary digester with a special brew of micro-organisms before spreading in the fields. The fields where designed on the keyline principal so there was no pollution escaping the property. After visiting a few large commercial piggeries over the last few years, I must say it was the best of the lot. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41 |
4H2S + 3Fe -> Fe3S4 + H8 H8 + 40 = 4H2O + x n volts or heat depending on how you do it. Fe3S4 can be heated to release the S4 which can be used as a fertaliser. The solution to pollution is dilution... There are safer ways of filtering it that produce a usable product as well. In a digester the H2S represents a very low % of the total. As for pollution. The digestate can be composted into a third product and / or made into a liquid fertaliser. You know how they sell 1 liter of water for 6000% in a shop? You can do the same here. Just been bantering with the greens about this. They are lobbying for feed in tariffs on renewable energy only while ignoring emerging technologies that are far more efficient such as catalyst technology. It was on the 7.30 report here... http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/ The cruncher is if the government does not assist in emerging efficiency then you are ignoring a further market such as farm generated renewable energy like this which can serve a duel purpose. Transport fuels and grid energy feed in. Then there is waste recycling which can turn solid organics and even plastics into a gas and a base oil through the use of Synthesis gas. The remaining products are also usable as a fertiliser and heavy oil for refining. It seperates naturally with ash / fly ash being mostly potash. Germany burns everything, filters it and catches the heavy metals (nasties). The filtered metals can then be re-sold on the market with no need to dig up more. Clever! Don't expect Australia or the US to get this soon. Too much paper work and lobbying going on by a less than imaginative government. |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Redman I think that if the government can't see a way to make tariffs and taxes in the short term because that's all they are there for,It goes in the to hard basket and the selling of natural recourse's to tax is their primary goal. They play lip service to to conservation but are more concerned with posing on the world stage as if they are truly relevant in the world scene. When I did my college studies they had the technology to clean burn coal and it was sold overseas and all record of the development here in Australia was disappeared intentionally.Conspiracy theory I don't think so, just plain stupidity. We see the same thing happening now with the Aussie fuel cell Technology going to go offshore. Same as the solar panel industry technology that was developed her and ended up in China. Between the commercial interests of the power companies and their pressure on government due to contracts of sale and guarantee of supply and consumption rights they, the government are ineffective to support good transitional technology. That Penny Wong is Wong alright couldn't organize a cook up in a butchers shop. They support a heat pump running on coal and don't support a gas powered fuel cell running on natural gas. Only a politician could be so stupid. Here we are the highest taxed country in the world and like sheeple we baar baar along and some even vote for these idiots. Enough soap box All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| grub Senior Member Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
I came across this while surfing the net and I liked it so much that I kept a copy of it. I think it says it all. Governmentium Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neuron, 25 assistant neurons, 88 deputy neurons, and 198 assistant deputy neurons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neurons and deputy neurons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neurons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons. |
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| Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41 |
I like that.. 
Yes minister was a documentary.. |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
Hi Grub and Redman, Thanks for the proper equation of the H2S + Fe problem and the link to the ABC green energy story and thanks to Grub for the moronic story. Not so long ago in Europe the feed-in tariffs were a fraction of what industry had to pay for the power themselves. I read stories of factories deciding not to sell their waste electricity back to the grid. The gov. had the monopoly of electricity generation and they were not interested in any private initiative. I remember the story of one Austrian farmer in the mountains who generated his own electricity via hydro but the gov. decided to supply him with power regardless of his wishes and then forced him to dismantle his hydro! I saw car new engines being run in on test stands at Renault in Paris and generating electricity; these days it is no longer necessary to do that but one wonders if in the "old" days that energy was being used or wasted. Since the green enlightenment things have changed and as the former Russian satellites regularly cut off the gas to Europe, there has been a keen awareness of the value of any wasted energy in Europe and the Greens in Germany have forced feed-in tariffs to be a multiple of the cost of supplied power making solar panels very common. The gov. has also shed its power-producing monopoly thru privatisation and forces the private power companies to purchase the fed-in power. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| Redman Regular Member Joined: 12/06/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 41 |
Any state / nation dealing with centralised grids is in for a shake up. Better to sell the assets now and then regulate. Once solar etc reaches a critical mass the output will make centralised energy redundant and replace it with a diverse, multi source integrated web of supply. For example, the energy arriving in the city will come from all around the city not just the few high voltage feeders that blot the landscape. During the day on most days solar feed in will be enough. In future Geo thermal will be the new coal and decentralized energy will ebb and flow as each state needs it. As technology improves over the next 20 years and the fuels used decrease to nearly zero the entire energy market will be made up of large and tiny producers each playing their part. The incentive for being involved is cost reduction or profit. The key to it all is pricing electricity realistically which means including external costs. America is sitting on so much Geo thermal a few holes in the ground could power the entire west coast in a few short years. Melbourne is getting our first in the next 3 years and the volcanic rock is from 20 million years old extinct rift volcanics, but its still hot, America has active volcanoes.... Melbourne Vic is sitting on the northern flank of a rift valley that started to open up when Antarctica broke free. Clean burning coal? Syn gas Coal + heat - O = CO CO + Heat = CO2 + energy Basically wood gas, you can run your car on it. If you burn anything it makes CO2 eventually. Its greener to burn grass as a fuel than burning coal. As for tech going overseas. Unavoidable I guess. There is a limited market in Australia and our government is poor compared to the budgets of the US, Asia and EU. To make these things pay requires big money so you need big money projects to start with. Australia can't satisfy that demand and politicians are too engrossed in "moral hazard" to justify the costs even though AGW is probably a reality and carries a more severe risk. In 3 years its not their problem and treasury would never accept the risk so the budget would never come to begin with. Most government starts in the departments which spew out ideas and planning maps for projects and projections of xxx growth. The governments are elected on a concept of related stuff but its treasury that gets the final say. Sure the USA could switch to Geothermal base load with wind and domestic solar talking up the rest of the demand but the treasury will never fund drilling for hot rocks while there is blowback politics and lobbying of government from big coal and unions to deal with. Hot rocks are hot potatoes for a politician even though its absolutely safe and efficient use of energy. Just like investing in HS trains. No one will do it unless the people get sick of the planes and airports first. |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Redman You sum it up well we are the poor white trash of the southern seas but it is that that makes Australians more innovative, always trying to make something from nothing and a roll of fence wire. On the government support, from what I see the short terms and lack of the commercial smarts is the biggest problem along with regulation taxes and workplace health and safety all lined up to make a nearly insurmountable barrier to the development of innovation. I think I will go back to the job of evicting the white ants from the workshop as thinking about the lost opportunities makes me depressed. Just like Mr Fudd. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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