Cows I know release a lot of methane. I’m but sure if there’s tech to harness that.
Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
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Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#122My local landfill growing up had an decent sized methane burn-off flame running 24/7. I would put it on par with a wide open hot air balloon burner. My dad told me it was there to commemorate all the unknown meals that people threw in the trash, so I should always finish my dinner out of respect.
My local landfill now taps that methane and powers generators with it.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#123My local landfill growing up had an decent sized methane burn-off flame running 24/7. I would put it on par with a wide open hot air balloon burner. My dad told me it was there to commemorate all the unknown meals that people threw in the trash, so I should always finish my dinner out of respect.
My local landfill now taps that methane and powers generators with it.
That's what the landfill transitioned to. I believe it now powers all the buildings onsite.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The energy generated from biogas recovery at Melbourne's two main sewerage plants (~100 GWh) isn't even enough to make them net generators [1]. The main environmental benefit isn't actually from the carbon footprint of biogas, it's the reduced methane and NOx emissions from capturing the gas. [1] https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-data-and-education/e...
Ya, but I would guess the story is a bit more complicated. Consider (off the top of my head): I imagine there's a real concentration problem there. Sewage is incredibly diluted if you think about it (divide your estimate of how much organic waste you generate by the amount of water used in your water bill). If, instead, houses had grey water systems (i.e. the sink in you bathroom is used to fill up your toilet tank),…
affluent -> effluent. Affluent means wealthy.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally your kitchen waste would go into a facility that properly handles it and will use it for energy production, but in a properly controlled environment (and if that energy production is biogas by avoiding methane leakage as good as possible). Of course whether that happens depends a lot on where you're living.
Although our municipal green waste gets converted to compost, I recently found out that there is a food waste to energy plant in my city [1]. Going by their numbers, a home can be powered for a year with 25 tonnes of food waste, or 70 kg a day. The two largest sewerage treatment plants also capture and generate electricity from biogas [2]. [1] https://www.yvw.com.au/faults-works/planned-works/completed-... [2] https:…
I think in Germany this is pretty standard (both turning organic waste into biogas and collecting biogas at sewage treatment facilities).
And tbh not treating organic waste as some form of resource should be considered a scandal these days, and the only valid discussion to be had should be how to use it (my bet would be that in the long term that will be chemicals and not energy). There is legitimately a lot of talk about the landuse issues of bioenergy, but using organic waste doesn't have any of those problems. It should be an absolute nobrainer.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#126Are we allowed to just dig up river bottoms? In many places you can get in serious trouble for disturbing wetlands. Were there any permits needed for this?
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#127Searching for the terms "secu" and "safe" doesn't yield any results. I know this is more of an art project, but in a photo he's driving through a city. What are the security implications of this? Also searching for "poly" doesn't yield any results, so I'm left to hope that the is using polycarbonate to provide some kind of safety shielding in case things go south. Also not on http://uitsloot.nl/sloot-motor/
His "Safety testing" video might have something? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxmQ3vFyVY
Great! Good to know that he seems to care so much about this that he even posts some kind of research videos about it. Good job!
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough, but my main point was that cycling or walking 20km probably consumes less energy than the “hard work” of harvesting methane for 8 hours.
Possibly, but this isn't really the tradeoff. It is using energy when you have time to reap the benefits when you actually need the quick travel. 20km is going to take hours to walk in one trip.
Now I'm imagining an alternate history/sci-fi planet where a neolithic society manages to effectively harness swamp gas (and eventually develop anaerobic digesters to produce it) as an energy source, instead of relying on timber/biomass.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know HN comments have a knack for trying to min/max and optimize something posted, but honestly that's not the point here. He's proving that it's possible to harvest methane from ponds, enough to power a moped. OF COURSE there's more efficient ways to get around, this isn't an attack on anyone's intellect or common sense and there's no need to react to getting nerdsniped by going "well ackchyually" and reinventing…
I agree with you, but I think part of the reason people have the reaction they do is that they start with the headline, which teases people into thinking this is something that is actually semi-viable, and then when they go in to read the article they find it is basically an art project, so there is this dissonance between expectations and reality. I almost feel like we need a "Show HN an Art Project:"-like headline…
Compounded here by the headline starting with "Inventor".
Typically "inventor does X" reads as a proof of concept of something other people might someday want to do, too.
Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
#130> Eight hours of hoeing in a ditch supplies him with enough fuel to ride his vehicle for 20 km Hmm, this is an art project but you can cycle 20km fairly leisurely in an hour. 8 hours of toiling in the ditches probably might be better used growing vegetables so your food isn’t being driven in?
One could easily walk 20km in 8 hours.
And with the right preparation you could collect methane too.