[Digestion] Generating electricity

[Warren Weisman]

I was a plant engineer at a remote fish processing
plant in Alaska and we had four 500 kW diesel
generators for power. Generating about 600 kWh at peak
load. These four generators went through about 100 US
gallons of diesel per hour, usually about 1,600
gallons per day. About $4,800 US of fuel/day (this is
why people use cheap coal to generate electricity!)
$144,000/month for the power to supply 600 houses.
About $240 US per house. Granted, we were running
heavy equipment, so just household electricity would
have been cheaper.  

I spent 2 years in the Alaskan bush in a little cabin
I generating my own electricity with a super quiet
Honda EU1000 four-cycle generator. This generator went
through about 1/2 gallon of gasoline over 10 hours.
Not exactly sure how much power I generated, but we
could run a TV, video game console, laptop, radio and
recharge a couple of deep cycle batteries. We went
through about 10 gallons of gasoline per month, if I
really leaned on the batteries. About $25 US per
month. 

In climates where digestion is practical, we can
generate 1 cu.m. of biogas per day with a 10 cu.m.
pit. 1 cu.m. of biogas will run a 1 horsepower engine
for 2 hours. So, it would run my EU1000 for about 4
hours. 

Instead of thinking about large-scale digesters to
solve our energy problems, I believe the solution is
to think smaller, so that it suits the nature of the
gas---being generated in limited quantities each day.
Have each household generate its own power using a
very small, efficient generator. The biogas would of
course cost nothing if we were utilizing household
waste. 

Warren Weisman
USA




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