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A year later I still see animal abuse. I also see the use of an incredible amount of fresh water used to wash the animal poop away. For a methane digester to be most efficient the manure has to be rather fresh which means constant washing.

here is a link for a simpler version.
http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd9/2/an92.htm
http://www.green-trust.org/Al%20Rutan/ESSN-Aug2005.pdf
http://www.green-trust.org/Al%20Rutan/ESSN-Dec2005.pdf
http://www.green-trust.org/Al%20Rutan/ESSN-Feb2005.pdf
http://www.green-trust.org/Al%20Rutan/ESSN-Jul2005.pdf

If you have a concentrated source of waste---such as a hundred cows or pigs in a confined space-- this does make sense, and has worked for farmers doing that. It's been well-known and used on some farms for decades in the US.
The infrastructure and labor costs of making it at an economically feasible alternative are not cheap here so you need to be very clear about the conditions and the math supporting it.
I've thought about using algae as source, but then again, in our culture, you'd have to fuel consumptive machines to harvest the algae and to fill the bio-gas tanks. To make that work economically you do need a certain amount of scale--a village at least would probably be feasible.
There are nearly endless sources of fuel about in every environmental niche but you have to fully understand the costs, the processes and the limitations.

I know this is a repost from one year ago . It is an important part of the energy mosaic and deserves a place in the dialogue . Thanks for you patience if you saw this before , if you didn't , what say you ?

We should all be doing this who can .

Will pay off $162,000 investment within 2 years, and enjoying off-grid power, cleaning up the pollution from industry, putting clean power back onto the grid for the community, creating employment ...damn cool.

It is a win - win for them too . If they have the courage to change .

It really sounds like a good idea. But I confess there are some farmers that were pretty mad at me in Neb when I lived there. When the news came out about the posionous chemicals like the pesticides banned, I was screaming about them using it and they were po'd! Believe me, living there is too close to people po'd. Now one of Okla. Senators Tom Coburn, is not only a Senator but a DOCTOR and he supports the poison pesticides! Nothing but a killer I can see. Too many evil and corrupt people have slid into positions that gives them the power to hurt people. Don't know what's gonna happen, but it will be satisfaction when some of the hurt they spread around will come back to them! Karma, and reaping what they sowed. Agrees with many religions....:))

NO

Actually , a friend of mine wants to do it . They clean out septic tanks . They need 3000 bucks in permits , just to get started . That is beyond building a facility and purchasing land .... This concept is also problematic for the powers that want a centrally controlled energy grid , as opposed to a locally controlled one . If every community had systems like this (national lab in Richland Wa stats recommended we could produce 15% of our energy needs in the pacific northwest ) -- think of the bargaining power the local communities would have . No more price gouging the public ! Add that 15% with a conservative 5% for solar alone 20% energy autonomy . The silence about this , is deafening .

True story. Even crap is saleable. Seems American farmers aren't smart enough to do it....or too lazy?

Could this not, in essence, fix the pollution problem of the beef industry?

This would be an alternative to the huge manure lagoons which now pollute large areas in several states.