permaculture

[John Fritz <johnfritz77@yahoo.com>]

Perhaps you are right and I missed the part where an animal waste methane 
digester was placed inside the compost pile.  What I have taken away from 
readings of accounts of Pain's work is that he was producing methane without 
the use of animal waste; that the methane was derived entirely from the 
"forest thicket compost" itself.  If anyone can refute that methane is 
absolutely not obtainable from wood products as the base source of the  
methane, (and not merely for the heating of animal wastes) this would put the 
issue to rest.  I must say that I would be disappointed if this were the 
case, but it would advance the discussion about retrieving accounts of Pain's 
accomplishments for the English speaking community.
   
  John Fritz, NW Arkansas.
   
  Message: 3
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:48:30 -0800
From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Final Draft of Mother Earth News Petition
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <45A3108E.6010401@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

My reading of the November 2000 Permaculture Activist article 
explicitly said that Pain did not focus on detailing how he extracted methane 
from the compost.  

Based on the accounts I have read, the methane is not derived from the 
compost, but rather a methane digester was imbedded in the pile to take 
advantage of compost heat to maximize the rate of methanogenesis.  The 
primary function of the pile was production of heat (for hot water) and 
organic matter for farming, with enhancement of methane production as a 
supplemental yield.

>Nor have I seen any explanation of this elsewhere.
>
Methane digestion technology is widely distributed.  Google "methane 
digester small-scale" or other such combination; for example:
http://www.habmigern2003.info/biogas/Baron-digester/Baron-digester.htm 
(pulled out of the virtual hat).



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