Projects - Biogas

Methane

Methane is a combustible gas and is the main component of natural gas. It mainly occurs naturally through the decomposition of organic material and is often encountered in the form of swamp gas. It is found in landfill sites due to decomposition of garbage.

Methane acts much like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, absorbing infrared energy and keeping heat energy on Earth, the difference being that is a far more potent greenhouse gas as it can absorb and emit 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Collecting methane and using it for fuel is not detrimental to the environment. On the contrary, as methane is a more potent gas than CO2, burning methane and thereby converting it to CO2 and water (in the form of vapour) could be considered environmentally friendly, as methane would otherwise escape to atmosphere.

Technical

For those who are interested, we have produced some technical data regarding the amount of power one cubic metre of methane can produce.

Click Here

Local manufacture and involvement

If methane were to be adopted by rural communities to replace wood and charcoal, it would save trees, which are also an important part of the environment, even at a local level as they help to preserve the condition of soil used for growing subsistence crops.

However, there would certainly be opposition from those who make their living (often illegally) by producing and selling charcoal.

Anaerobic digesters need to be constructed, installed and maintained. Charcoal sellers could be trained to construct methane collectors and install them, thereby giving them an alternative (legal) income and at the same time, helping to preserve trees.

Anaerobic digesters produce, as a byproduct, a very good, sterile fertiliser that could be collected by the retrained charcoal burners and sold on.

Many biomass conversion technologies for rural applications are easily manufactured by local artisans or by small and medium sized engineering workshops.

Digester Designs