Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

notechmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 181 posts

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#91

Post by geoduck14 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #74

Earlier 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…

Serious question, why would you use a throwaway account for a comment like this?

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#92

Post by ortusdux »

My 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.

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#93

Post by toomanybeersies »

kleton wrote: post #64

There aren't a lot of places that use anaerobic digesters (fermenting waste to methane) to treat wastewater. Anheuser-Busch does it at their breweries because their wastewater is particularly rich. If more municipalities built those at their wastewater treatment plants, then it would be a sizeable amount of carbon-neutral fuel. There are already 1200 municipal wastewater treatment plants in the US that do this accord…

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...

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#94

Post by gruez »

kiliantics wrote: post #86
gruez wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and you know on the scale of BP pouring millions of oil into the ocean, I reckon what this guy is doing is absoloutley fine and the environmental damage is well within range of what the local environment can cope with and recover from within a reasonably small time frame. But BP serves millions of customers. If you normalize by that (ie. pollution divided by customers), my guess is that digging up ponds is more envi…

if you destroy the support systems that all organic life depends on, then you aren't serving the customers all that well...

I think you're misreading my comment. It's not to say that it's okay for BP to spill oil, it's that all things considered, the environmental impact of a tank of gas (extracted using current methods) is much less than what this guy is doing. Imagine the alternative: rather than every american filling up at the gas pump, they're dredging up ponds/ditches for methane. How much environmental impact would that cause? Is that better than the occasional oil spill we get?

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#95

Post by fleaaaa »

fettucini wrote: post #85

IIRC the average male farts 20 times a day. If he installed a voluntary workplace "collector", he would improve the office environment considerably (as well as improving climate change) and harvest methane for free. For that special motorcyclist: how about a direct butt plug-in? A former co-worker especially fond of flatulent foods could likely get 10 km from a bean burrito.

Feel the nitro punch of acceleration.

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#96

Post by NegativeLatency »

geoduck14 wrote: post #91
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Serious question, why would you use a throwaway account for a comment like this?

Maybe the name is just a joke?

user: hn_throwaway_99

created: February 20, 2017

karma: 28836

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#98

Post by toomanybeersies »

hannob wrote: post #58
mnw21cam wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're collecting something that would be produced anyway, it's going to be a net bonus.

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://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-data-and-education/e...

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#99

Post by aaron695 »

larrydag wrote: post #66
adamius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me or did anyone else see an opportunity for automating this? He seemed to be working up and down. A fully mechanical / hydraulic actuator could do this.

I would imagine a good use of a windmill could be use to pump and accumulate.

He has footage of a Wind powered Gasmaaier on his site.

Although it's possibly CGI -

https://uitsloot.nl/infrastructuur/

Re: Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped

#100

Post by tolerant_sol »

ortusdux wrote: post #92

My 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.

As a kid I am sure that made more sense than “to save the planet a little”.
Post reply on HN