Biogas from Cow Dung in Luxembourg
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain on 09. 5.06
I don’t know why I haven’t shared this with you yet but I am from a village in Luxembourg called Redange where the tropical swimming pool, the sports centre & the school they are building are/will be heated by cow dung. My dad and 28 other cattle farmers got together and started the coop 'Biogas un der Atert ' (‘Atert’ being our river) to ‘convert the methane from their cow manure into bio-fuel for cogeneration motors. Their installation solves part of their manure surplus and has an electrical production of 1366 Mwh/year (supplied to the grid) and a heat production of 2037 MWh/year (supplied to the swimming pool, sports centre & school).’ All that’s left afterwards is a high-quality organic fertiliser for the farmer’s fields that’s not at all smelly and totally free of methane (one of the most harmful greenhouse gasses).
From an environmental point of view it is clearly positive but the whole operation comes with quite a high cost of installation which at this point is still the main reason why this technology hasn’t spread further.
In Luxembourg however, the farmers were granted cogeneration and green certificates which makes the investment worth-while and the pay-back period shorter. Another advantage for this particular installation in Redange (one of the biggest in the world so far and referred to as the ‘textbook example’) is that the cattle farms are not located too far away from each other and have the destinations for the heat close by which limits loss of energy.
The project ‘Biogas un der Atert’ brings together 3 main points of sustainable development: economical efficiency, social collaboration & protection of the environment. The biogas technology used in the project comes from Luxembourg and is the work of a local engineering company L.E.E.. Bio-Metha is a new North American company introducing a similar approach in Canada using the collaboration of partners like L.E.E. from Luxembourg.
To see pictures, read the whole story and further information about the process click here. More information about ‘Biosgas un der Atert ‘ on :: thewatt.com, :: L.E.E., :: Bio-Metha, and more TreeHugger :: Power of Poo
It is important to make as many people as possible aware of this technology.
This project is a very good biogas reference showing an approach where a group of farmers with government's help and a good technology partner can make a big difference.
This sort of thing has been used for quite some time. I visited Mbingo Hospital in rural Cameroon three years ago, and was intrigued by their use of biogas there. A herd of cattle is corralled on a concrete pad overnight, and the manure that collects is washed down into a (really) large collection bag. As the manure releases gas, it is collected and routed to water heaters and sterilization units in the hospital. It's all very advanced for that part of the world.
This is one of many innovative projects at Mbingo Hospital; most are the result of the work of Thom & Ellen Schotanus.
Here is a photo I found of the site. (I took some photos when there, but only had a cheap film camera along, and the pics turned out poorly. This lady's shots on webshots.com are quite nice.)
I need a sketch showing any piping or gadgets in a typical setup of a methane production process.
I need to construct one in my country Zambia.
hi, it will be very kind of you to send me tecnical drawing plz, i need to make one for my village, regards fiaz