Biogas Production In TW2000

[Poor Merchant]

Hi,
I was watching a programme on Sky the other evening about the production of methane from cow (and other manure) and was prompted to look on the web.

As an introduction for those of you unware of what is involved here is one site I found (complete with a link to a High School science project type model):

http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_biomassbuild-1.shtml

Along with some more technical data:

http://www.clemson.edu/agbioeng/bio/Chastain/On-Farm Biogas-Summary.pdf

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/waste/default.htm

And some engines designed to operate with gaspower (although normal petrol engines can be adapted very easily):

http://www.clarke-energy.co.uk/gas_engines.html

And some statistics for the USA from 1997:

http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/atlas97/index.htm#LIVSTCKNPOLTRY


Obviously, a GM would need to put in a bit of effort to come to some conclusions about how farm production in his area had fared. The key questions would be (off the top of my head):

1) How many animals were still alive? While the units in the examples owned hundreds of cows smaller scale collection of cowpoo (and indeed, pig or chicken droppings) would also work.

2) Ability to collect the droppings and put them in the digester.

3) Source of water to add to the droppings to create a slurry (apparently an 8% solution of poo is best).

4) Ability to maintain the digester at the optimum temperature (the bacteria work best within certain temperature ranges).

Once you have the methane then obviously it can be used to generate electricity, power vehicles or (possibly best option) burnt directly for heating purposes. The slurry once it has gone through the digester can be used as fertiliser.

One of my first campaigns was based upon the attempt by a village to produce a large still to provide fuel for a large generator (which was another whole set of adventures) - obviously a biogas digester like this would be another option for a group to utilise.

I thought this was one of those alternative technologies which is basically simple enough to translate into TW2000 situations.

 

[redwalker]

I have met the director of a real-life biogas lab. They can be used to produce renewable methane and hydrogen.

They break Traveller economics.

I love and revere Marc Miller, but he could not have foreseen all the technology developments from 1978-2008. He was but a soldier, not a clairvoyant. And he wanted a system that could simulate the Age of Sail, and he made it -- regardless if that is a "realistic" projection.

But, yeah - biogas means that low-tech communities don't need outsiders with fusion. Biogas means permaculture. That really breaks with the Traveller style of extract-the-resources all-industry-is-big tech.

 

[Poor Merchant]

"They break Traveller economics"

Well, I see this (in the TW2000 universe) as a possible powersource for a community. I see agriculture as much less of a business and more a part of a medieval style subsistance economy in 2000. A village co-operative might have the cattle, pigs etc to produce the poo needed (although this is a technology that can be done on a very small scale) to run large scale bio-gas production but in my mind's eye I cannot see many farmers still owning a 100 cattle in 2000 as individuals.

I could see it as a source of adventures - being hired to stop cattle rustling, transporting cattle to a village expanding it's bio-gas facility. Or it could be one of the details adding colour to your game - young children being given the job of gathering up poo from fields to power the digestor, families putting out buckets of wee for collection by the "Petermen", that kind of thing.

In Traveller I can see bio-gas being another element of the agriculture business - adding to the profits. But I do not see it replacing fusion reactors.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>3) Source of water to add to the droppings to create a slurry (apparently an 8% solution of poo is best).

only a problem the first time .... after that recycling and urine should be enough

>as a possible powersource for a community

This combined with ethanol still and similar fuel sources (charcoal and wood did fuel trucks in the war years) it is possible to maintain a semblance of an industrial economy in a fairly temperate climate without fossil fuels

 

[mbrinkhues]

Actually for keeping the community running COAL would be a lot more useful and quite easy to use. In quite a few regions it is only a few meters below ground. The seams are to small for modern mechanical harvesting but "pick-axe and muscle" systems work just fine. See "Emergeny Mining in Germany" post WWI and WWII. And brown coal in useful amounts can be recovered by manualle digging it from the already existing open pit mines. Just don't expect to run a large industrial base from it.

Harvesting Methan can actually be done by using the local sewage plant. At least in Germany these already gather the Methane (CH4 aka Faulgas) and burn it centraly. Just tap the line shortly before it is burned and feed the stuff in an adapted engine

Using woodgas (Holzvergaser in german) is rather cumbersom. The unit is huge and not very efficient. you are likely better of using vegetable oils to run older diesel trucks and busses

 

[redwalker]

"They break Traveller economics"

Well, I see this (in the TW2000 universe) as a possible powersource for a community. I see agriculture as much less of a business and more a part of a medieval style subsistance economy in 2000. A village co-operative might have the cattle, pigs etc to produce the poo needed (although this is a technology that can be done on a very small scale) to run large scale bio-gas production but in my mind's eye I cannot see many farmers still owning a 100 cattle in 2000 as individuals.

I could see it as a source of adventures - being hired to stop cattle rustling, transporting cattle to a village expanding it's bio-gas facility. Or it could be one of the details adding colour to your game - young children being given the job of gathering up poo from fields to power the digestor, families putting out buckets of wee for collection by the "Petermen", that kind of thing.

In Traveller I can see bio-gas being another element of the agriculture business - adding to the profits. But I do not see it replacing fusion reactors.

Actually, I should have made it clearer -- I do think biogas is a great idea, both in fiction and in real life, and it would be great for Twilight:2000.

Just don't have Tina Turner, wearing a chainmail garter belt.

Unless your players agree to her presence.


"We don't need another hero...."

The ironic thing about that song is that the people in that movie really DID need another hero...

 

[Poor Merchant]

Biogas means permaculture. That really breaks with the Traveller style of extract-the-resources all-industry-is-big tech.

I guess the "slash and burn" image of big industry is a product of the time when Traveller was originally developed but I find the attractive thing about Traveller (and in many ways TW2000) is that it is a loose enough framework to do pretty much whatever you want. I think if that were not the case it wouldn't have lasted so long. With 11,000 worlds there is room for everyone!

My first campaign with TW2000 started with the official materials (Free City of Krakow and Pirates of the Vistula) and quickly drifted into helping a village near Krakow. The players provided security for the village, and managed to produce a large crop of fodder beet which they traded with Krakow for a large still. They also developed a Neighbourhood Watch programme with the other small villages nearby so that the village militias could co-operate against marauders. The capacity of the large still was used by allowing other villages to use it for a small percentage of the fuel produced. When extra labour was needed the players cut a deal with Krakow to use their robotniki, some of whom stayed as the village was now becoming safer.

Each of these steps meant adventures as the players sought out equipment, NPCs with the right skills, negotiated with other villages and so on. Going Home was largely useful for the railway stuff as my players were not keen to leave the village they had built up. None of that "we only have one hour to save the world" stuff but good fun nevertheless.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Using woodgas (Holzvergaser in german) is rather cumbersome

Then the Australians must have known something the Germans dont as there are a large number of ww2 vehicles in Australia fitted with with "charcoal burners" to supplement their gasoline ration

Anyway my idea was mainly brewing alcohol fuel from sawdust/woodchip type waste which is no more difficult than any other still and lets you recycle all that waste wood that doesnt get used directly for firewood etc

Feeding that (still frementing) mash into your woodgas engine also gets much better (and more explosive) fuel results

 

[mbrinkhues]

>Using woodgas (Holzvergaser in german) is rather cumbersome

Then the Australians must have known something the Germans dont as there are a large number of ww2 vehicles in Australia fitted with with "charcoal burners" to supplement their gasoline ration

Anyway my idea was mainly brewing alcohol fuel from sawdust/woodchip type waste which is no more difficult than any other still and lets you recycle all that waste wood that doesnt get used directly for firewood etc

Feeding that (still frementing) mash into your woodgas engine also gets much better (and more explosive) fuel results

There is a difference between "cumbersome" and "can't be done". I can run a submarine on coal-fired steam engines but it might be a tad cumbersome.

The Gas-Generator is relatively large (taking cargo space) and ineffective if used in an un-modified engine(reducing top speed massively). It also has a relatively short endurance and the system was getting quite hot. Not to mention that the Gas wasn't all that healthy if it leaked. Tugboats using the system where HATED by their crews and phased out/rebuild to diesels BEFORE the pure coal burners despite being 10-20 years younger.

And if you use an alcohol still it is more effective to burn the resulting alcohol in a modified engine. The modifications are relatively simple (quite a few milspec trucks already HAVE them) and don't carry the problems of the Holzvergaser

 

[Peter Schutze]

We are obviously talking about totally different things.

A small garbage can sized thing strapped in front of a truck's radiator is hardly that great an inconvenience. I'll try to find and scan the pictures.

Probably not exactly the same thing as a "Holzvergaser" but definitely relying on "Using woodgas"

I dont doubt that any easy technology not relying on gasoline would "reducing top speed massively" as well as power for wieght of fuel ratios which probably accounts for most rulebooks having conversion tables.

In any case I hardly think the average survivalist cargo truck is going to be as concerned with top speed as the ability to make it to the destination

 

[Golan2072]

I have met the director of a real-life biogas lab. They can be used to produce renewable methane and hydrogen.

I wrote a term paper ("seminary") about it at the end of my ecology/sociology B.A. degree and practically fell in love with this technology.

Biogas is one of the best sources of renewable energy - essentially turning sh!t into fuel (biogas) and a concentrated organic fertilizer (the residual liquid left after the digestion process). The technology to produce it is dirt cheap (150 US$ for a simple digester in some places, including installation fees) and very easy to install and use. Its main advantage over other bio-fuels (such as ethanol and bio-diesel) is that you don't need to grow the raw materials for it, but rather use any form of existing organic waste (especially animal or human excrements, which otherwise are a major pollutant) - this means no need for additional crop cultivation and land use.

Biogas digesters typically produce a mixture of around 60% methane and 40% CO2, with several trace gases (typically nitrogen and sulfur compounds). This gas mixture burns well, but most internal combustion engines (especially car engines) won't work well with it, so you'll need to scrub the CO2 to get a mixture with about 95%-98% methane - a more tech-intensive and complex process using more expensive equipment.

But the beauty about biogas is that you can use it directly with very simple equipment without transforming it into electricity (which requires a gas turbine, which is more expensive and complex than the digester). You can use it for cooking, heating, water-pumping and lighting - even heat-absorbing refrigeration - directly, using stoves and lamps which could be produced locally from simple ingredients. Electricity you'll need for higher-tech equipment (such as radios and computers), but not for the basic needs of life (heat, hot meals, running water, light and well-preserved food).

They break Traveller economics.

<snip>

But, yeah - biogas means that low-tech communities don't need outsiders with fusion. Biogas means permaculture. That really breaks with the Traveller style of extract-the-resources all-industry-is-big tech.

Fusion is still far, far more efficient in producing energy per unit of labor. If we had sustainable Traveller-style fusion today (cheap massive amounts of energy, no pollution, uses hydrogen from water rather than Helium-3) we wouldn't be needing biogas - we would have all the energy we need for cheap from a virtually renewable resource. But we don't have such technology now - so biogas is a great alternative.

And some heavy industrial processes (such as smelting aluminum) require massive amounts of electricity, far more than the typical biogas plant could provide. Also, you could still have extract-the-resources all-industry-is-big tech in areas other than energy production - especially when mineral extraction/refining is concerned.

Also, remember that biogas requires oxygen to burn - so on an airless world, where oxygen is a limited resource, fusion would be preferable. And on an airless world you'll need to generate electricity in any case for life-support purposes...

EDIT: Biogas might actually work very well with Traveller universes - it could be part of the reason for all those low-TL worlds existing while higher-tech worlds are close by. This explanation works well for low-pop worlds: higher-pop urbanized worlds would benefit far more from fusion than low-pop rural worlds.

 

[mbrinkhues]

We are obviously talking about totally different things.

A small garbage can sized thing strapped in front of a truck's radiator is hardly that great an inconvenience. I'll try to find and scan the pictures.

Probably not exactly the same thing as a "Holzvergaser" but definitely relying on "Using woodgas"

I dont doubt that any easy technology not relying on gasoline would "reducing top speed massively" as well as power for wieght of fuel ratios which probably accounts for most rulebooks having conversion tables.

In any case I hardly think the average survivalist cargo truck is going to be as concerned with top speed as the ability to make it to the destination

This here is a unit. It produces the equivalent of 1 liter petrol from 3kg of beech wood. The unit is known as an "Imbert Generator" after Georges Christian Peter Imbert

Among the problems of the "Vergaser":

+ Long startup time until gas is availabel (Tugs kept the unit on "slow burn" over night)

+ Produces large amounts of CO and CO2 that are quite poisenous if the unit is not well maintained

+ Large amounts of alternate fuel

I'd say you are better of with a still. There are historical reasons NOT to use on:

+ Taxes (The still can produce ethanol) and health-care (It can also produce methanol and most can't distinguish)

+ Less Diesel vehicles (Modern diesel cars are post WWII mostly)

 

[Schedim]

As a researcher in the field of biogas I can only concure with all the praise of biogas

The thing with biogas is that you can't avoid it, it will be produced from any organic material stored in a way so it get anaerobic. All manure storages produces it, all waste water plants do, it is just resently here in the western world we have begun to do anything with it, until just a couple of years ago it was simply burned off into the atmoshere and regarded as a waste product.
In China the farmers has for several decades put a tarp over the manure storage and piped the gas to the kitchen stove.
Here in sweden a lot of wastwater plants has discovered it and as the biogas production from waste water is a bit low, begun to add higher grade waste into the mix in order to produce more gas.
Ordinary engines can (relatively) easily be converted to running on upgraded biogas (the storage and upgrade has to be of a bit high-tech in order to be efficient, so it is nothing for low tech communities anyway).

But it would easily explain how retro-tech communities could survive quite well, as the biogas works well with stationary energy/heat production (if there is somekind of organics to methanioze).

The drawback is that a society would be very hampered is relying only on biogas as it is only so much organic waste to go around, and energy crops is not so energy efficient.

So the biogas is not a solution to the energy crisis (whatever IRL or in TU) but is is a complement.

 

[Poor Merchant]

I think any community in TW2000 will be grabbing every source of energy they can find, whether it be biogas, windmills, small hydropower generators or just plain old waterwheels. Each energy source will probably be most useful for a particular purpose and sensible survivors will endeavour to use their energy production accordingly.

Given that the industrial revolution started by using water power to run basic industrial plants and the rivers to transport the raw materials and finished products I rather see riverbank sites returning to importance in TW2000.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Just to put a name to "biogas": The gas produced by sewage plants is mostly CH4 (Methane). With some treatment and concentration it can be used as a substitute for liquid natural gas and can be fed in an existing LNG network. See here.

Upgraded/Cleaned/Concentrated that way and than liquified it can also be used in vehicles. Can't say for the USA but in Europe cars that have a LNG-tank in the former "spare wheel well"(Autogas) and a network of fuel stations for them exist. More common in the Netherlands but useabel even in Germany. Guess this type of vehicle would become a prize in the T2K world since they are "dual use" (Can use petrol and LNG, have two tanks)

LNG/LPG is mostly used in petrol burning cars. Diesel engines only recently became capabel of using it. It may be that in the T2K world those civilian vehicles are not availabel or no longer work due to EMP et all.

(Another car variant uses Compressed Natural Gas instead of liquifying it. This is cheaper in production)

 

[redwalker]

(Another car variant uses Compressed Natural Gas instead of liquifying it. This is cheaper in production)

In a setting with viable tech, cheap non-storable power (such as photovoltaic) can be used to compress the gas, because that's more efficient than a battery.

In a setting more like Twilight 2000, without readily available photovoltaic, it might actually be feasible to have a huge, low-pressure tank of gas to make a vehicle with lousy range and safety that's used only when necessary (e.g. hauling heavy loads).

 

[redwalker]

Researchers Develop Method for Turning Methane into Liquid Fuel
The pipes that rise from oil fields, topped with burning flames of natural gas, waste fossil fuels and dump carbon dioxide into the air. In new york, researchers have identified the structure of a catalytic material that can turn methane into a safe and easy-to-transport liquid. The insight lays the foundation for converting excess methane into a variety of useful fuels and chemicals.

"There's a big interest in doing something with this 'stranded' methane other than flaring it off," said chemist Chuck Peden of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "An important thing researchers have struggled with is determining the structure of the active catalyst."

That catalyst -- molybdenum oxide sitting on a zeolite mineral -- converts methane gas into the more tractable liquid benzene. But the process is not yet commercially viable. Scientists don't understand enough about the molecular details to improve the catalyst. Now, researchers at PNNL and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Liaoning province have worked out some of the details that will help researchers zoom in on an efficient catalyst.

They reported their results March 26 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This work is the first publication to come out of the International Consortium for Clean Energy, a collaboration between PNNL, the DICP and China's Institute of Coal Chemistry.

To get these results, the chemists -- led by Peden at PNNL and Xinhe Bao at DICP -- used the world's largest instrument of its kind -- a 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. The NMR is armed with one of the strongest magnets constructed and can be outfitted to investigate solid samples, a step above its smaller cousins.

The combination of molybdenum oxide and a zeolite mineral had been shown in 1993 to convert methane, but the catalyst has been difficult to analyse. Researchers know that the zeolite anchors molybdenum oxide in place so methane and molybdenum oxide can react chemically, either on or in the zeolite channels. But no one could tell which comprised the reactive form: a small nugget of one or two molecules, or a larger cluster of many molybdenum oxide molecules.

"This uncertainty has led to a controversy in the scientific literature about the active phase and reaction mechanism of methane activation on these promising catalyst materials," said DICP's Bao.

Enter the world's largest NMR, uniquely capable of addressing this issue. The technological problem lay in the molybdenum oxide itself. To study this particular oxide with NMR, the chemists needed to pick up the signal from one variant of molybdenum, 95Mo; the ultra-high field of the NMR, housed at the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on the PNNL campus, allowed them to do so.

"The higher magnetic field improves the signal to noise," said Peden. "And its large sample volume allowed us to put enough catalyst into the spectrometer to overcome the poor sensitivity of 95Mo NMR."

The researchers painstakingly prepared catalysts with increasing concentrations of molybdenum in the zeolite scaffold and focused the 900 MHz NMR on the samples. The data revealed two different forms of the catalyst, as expected. One form contained the smaller nugget and the other form comprised the much larger clusters. When the concentration of molybdenum rose, more of these large clusters formed.

Then the team added methane and measured how much got converted into benzene by the catalysts. They found that when more smaller nuggets were present, more benzene was made, indicating the variety of one or two molybdenum oxide molecules was the reactive one.

Now, said Peden, the challenge is to design and produce the active form of the catalyst that could be used for large-scale benzene production, research that Bao and his group are already working on.

"We need to figure out how to get that structure and keep it that way," Bao said.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news5.23.08a.html

 

[aramis]

In a setting with viable tech, cheap non-storable power (such as photovoltaic) can be used to compress the gas, because that's more efficient than a battery.

In a setting more like Twilight 2000, without readily available photovoltaic, it might actually be feasible to have a huge, low-pressure tank of gas to make a vehicle with lousy range and safety that's used only when necessary (e.g. hauling heavy loads).

Heck, you don't even need burnable gas to do so... compressed air is good enough, and one can get 5+ atm from a well built brass & leather system... (that's what, 75PSI?) Better materials, and one can go well above that on found tech...

compressed gasses provide a good power source for storage.

 

[Golan2072]

Ordinary engines can (relatively) easily be converted to running on upgraded biogas (the storage and upgrade has to be of a bit high-tech in order to be efficient, so it is nothing for low tech communities anyway).

How high-tech is this? And is it possible for some internal combustion engines to run on "raw" unrefined biogas (circa 60% methane, 40% CO2)?

The drawback is that a society would be very hampered is relying only on biogas as it is only so much organic waste to go around, and energy crops is not so energy efficient.

If I understand correctly, biogas would probably work well for powering (or heating/lighting farms and giving them cooking stoves without the need for a generator) farms or farming villages, especially ones with livestock, as their need for energy aren't too high and the supply of manure is large. Domestic uses would probably work well with it as well, especially if the houses are designed to conserve energy (or use quite little energy due to the low economic level of a post-apocalyptic setting) and there is quite an amount of domestic waste to work with. The big problem would be with industry, especially heavy industry, as it tends to be very energy-intensive (especially metallurgical processes such as smelting aluminum). This is where you'll need a powerful source of energy such as a large hydroelectric dam or a geothermal plant. But in a post-apocalyptic world, you'll rarely have any heavy industry - or even large urban centers - left around.

I think any community in TW2000 will be grabbing every source of energy they can find, whether it be biogas, windmills, small hydropower generators or just plain old waterwheels. Each energy source will probably be most useful for a particular purpose and sensible survivors will endeavour to use their energy production accordingly.

Exactly. If you have livestock, biogas would work well for you; if you live near a stream (especially a fast-flowing one), you could use hydroelectric power or a watermill; if you get regular strong winds you could set up a windmill; and so on.

In a setting more like Twilight 2000, without readily available photovoltaic, it might actually be feasible to have a huge, low-pressure tank of gas to make a vehicle with lousy range and safety that's used only when necessary (e.g. hauling heavy loads).

From a gaming perspective, this has another advantage: such improvised tanks are easily punctured, and when methane mixes with air it is quite flammable and even explosive...

 

[mbrinkhues]

Heck, you don't even need burnable gas to do so... compressed air is good enough, and one can get 5+ atm from a well built brass & leather system... (that's what, 75PSI?) Better materials, and one can go well above that on found tech...

compressed gasses provide a good power source for storage.

Compressed Air systems can actually salvaged en mass from the Ruhr Valley. Together with air-powered saws, drills, earth movers etc. They are used everywhere an electrical sparc or diesel engine might cause an explosion. And quite a few of the high-pressure generators are steam driven engines dating back to the period of 1900-1910.

While you are at it, salvage some from the non-NC Lathes and Drills used to teach basic metalworking skills in the large industrie training centers (Lehrwerkstätten) set up in the same region.