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Author	Topic: Hog-oline?
Quintain Member	posted 05-11-2006 02:01 PM http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/14449289.htm Comments? IP: Logged
KGB Moderator	posted 05-11-2006 02:30 PM quote: Like most farmers, much of the manure from Dumoulin's hogs winds up as fertilizer. Most farmers wind up as fertilizer? All jokes aside, I wonder about this: quote: A typical pig produces about 6 gallons of waste a day. and quote: Zhang predicts the process could get 3.6 gallons of crude oil a day out of each pig. Illinois brings some 7.2 million hogs to market each year and the nationwide industry is about 100-million hogs strong. I wonder about the math. 3.6 gallons of synthetic petroleum from 6 gallons of pig manure? That seems optimistic. Also, there is no discussion of other inputs -- such as the energy to heat the pressure oven, or whatever reducing agent is used to strip the excess carbon and oxygen out of the manure. (I'm almost certain there's excess carbon and oxygen in pig dung versus petroleum.) 100 million hogs producing 3.6 gallons per day amounts to eight million barrels a day, versus present U.S. consumption of about 20 million barrels a day. Gosh, that would be nice; we'd cut imports in half. However, farmers who are not using pig dung for fertilizer must use somethign else for fertilizer. I'm guessing that the economics work out such that pig dung is more valuable as fertilizer than as feed stock for synthetic petroleum. It takes a lot of energy to fix nitrogen. IP: Logged
CowPieMaster Member	posted 05-11-2006 02:40 PM I am the CPM not the HPM. However, the choice if technology to process out the energy contained in manure depends on the moisture content which depends on the animal and the type of manure collection system. Your link does not provide enough detail about the technology. Yes, it can be done but is it practical on a farm scale. Manure has much more value as fertilizer than as energy. IP: Logged
Quintain Member	posted 05-11-2006 03:48 PM quote: Manure has much more value as fertilizer than as energy. Not monetary value. According to the article, the fertilizer is given away with only a "service fee" if the persons giving the manure away spread it over someone else's fields. IP: Logged
KGB Moderator	posted 05-11-2006 04:04 PM quote: Originally posted by Quintain: Not monetary value. According to the article, the fertilizer is given away with only a "service fee" if the persons giving the manure away spread it over someone else's fields. I wondered about that, too, but I suspect the cost of collecting and redistributing is sizeable. Look at it this way: Would it be economical to run an oil pipeline to a well that produced only 3.6 gallons of oil a day? I'm guessing not. On the other hand, if oil was magically appearing in your backyard at the rate of 3.6 gallons a day and you needed to be rid of it (maybe you run a garage?) you would probably have to pay someone to come take it away. IP: Logged
10SNE1 Moderator	posted 05-11-2006 04:45 PM "...if oil was magically appearing in your backyard at the rate of 3.6 gallons a day..." you'd be Setnahkt, and have to pay big EPA fines, PLUS find someone to take it away. IP: Logged
KGB Moderator	posted 05-11-2006 06:20 PM I was kind of thinking of Setnahkt when I posted that. ------------------ Kent G. Budge When your world view is made up entirely of round holes, your mind is a lathe that can turn everything into a cylinder. --James Lileks Trolling in Shallow Water IP: Logged
setnahkt Member	posted 05-11-2006 06:44 PM 42000 gallons of used oil a year. Mostly crankcase, but also differential oil, chassis grease, ATF, etc. Because we deal in such huge volumes, we get paid a few cents a gallon for it. We also sell Diesel we've extracted from groundwater back to the refinery. We get wellhead crude price for it. This doesn't, of course, come even remotely close to the cost of getting it out of the groundwater. I'd love it to have suff actually bubbling out of the ground; it would be really easy to deal with. Eighteen feet down is another story. I know of at a case involving a huge - several million gallons - locomotive bunker fuel release in a railyard in New Mexico. Several railroads were the possible source and each pointed a finger at the other. In the mean time, one of the locals got the subsurface oil rights - that must be easier to do in New Mexico than it is here - set up a windmill, and began pump the stuff out, getting a few barrels a day. (This is the part that sounds suspiscious - the soil partition coefficient for heavy oil is such that it should be really difficult to extract that way, but maybe I don't know all the details). None of the railroads were willing to jump up and say "Hey, that's our oil" because then they would be admitting to the regulators that they were responsible. I have no idea how long the pumping went on. IP: Logged
setnahkt Member	posted 05-11-2006 06:57 PM quote: Originally posted by KGB: I wonder about the math. 3.6 gallons of synthetic petroleum from 6 gallons of pig manure? That seems optimistic.... I would think so. A little googling (amazing what you can find on the Web) discloses that animal manure (not "waste" which would presumably include urine) is 75-85% water. That means they'd have to be cracking the water back to hydrogen and oxygen and recombining the hydrogen with carbon from manure to make hydrocarbons to get the better than 50% yield they are talking about. While not chemically impossible - you made manufactured "water gas" that way - it's got to use way more energy than you could possibly get out of it. If you used the total hog waste, including urine, the ratios would get even worse. I wonder if somebody mixed up gallons and liters somewhere? IP: Logged
El Buggo Member	posted 05-12-2006 12:54 PM I'm thinking someone's trying to resolve an excess manure problem here. Farm fields have only a limited capacity for fertilizer, whether it's synthetic, manure or something else altogether. There's also a funny little odor issue, so you can't put it on every field (that rural-urban interface thingy). Also issues of particular suitability of land types for the manure to be spread on. Sandy soils, not so good, especially if you have water table concerns, runoff concerns, etc. Like everything else, nutrients are a good thing, just not too many of them. IP: Logged
KGB Moderator	posted 05-12-2006 02:40 PM No doubt Say's Law applies: "Supply creates its own demand," or, in more colloquial English: If there's enough of it lying around unused, then someone will find a profitable use for it. If getting rid of pig manure is a big enough problem, then it will be profitable to convert it to diesel. The cost of conversion will be subsidized by the savings in waste disposal. I remain skeptical that pig manure will be cheaper to convert to diesel than to dispose of in other ways, and profoundly skeptical about the 6 gallons to 3.6 gallons conversion efficiency. Even confusion of gallons with liters -- making it not quite a gallon of petroleum from six gallons of manure -- seems a stretch. ------------------ Kent G. Budge When your world view is made up entirely of round holes, your mind is a lathe that can turn everything into a cylinder. --James Lileks Trolling in Shallow Water IP: Logged
Greg F Member	posted 05-12-2006 05:19 PM The high regard I have for journalist makes me wonder if the author did his own math and then attributed it Zhang. quote: Zhang predicts the process could get 3.6 gallons of crude oil a day out of each pig. The press release from the university says: quote: Zhang's team has achieved as high as 70-percent conversion from swine manure volatile solids to oil. At that conversion efficiency, the manure excreted by one pig during the production cycle could produce up to 21 gallons of crude oil and add a $10 per pig profit. No mention of 3.6 gallons in the press release. A few questions come to mind. What percentage of the manure is volatile solids? How long is a production cycle? A better article in National Georgraphic says: quote: For now, each half-gallon (two-liter) batch of manure converts to only about 9 ounces (0.26 liter) of oil. That translates to 0.84 gallons of oil from 6 lbs of manure. A more believable number. Edit to add: My first question is answered in the National Geographic article: quote: About 20 percent of the manure is considered solid; the rest is largely water. [This message has been edited by Greg F (edited 05-12-2006).] IP: Logged
Casper Member	posted 05-14-2006 08:10 AM quote: Originally posted by CowPieMaster: I am the CPM not the HPM. However, the choice if technology to process out the energy contained in manure depends on the moisture content which depends on the animal and the type of manure collection system. Your link does not provide enough detail about the technology. Yes, it can be done but is it practical on a farm scale. Manure has much more value as fertilizer than as energy. My the difference a year makes. I thought manurethane was going to fix everything? IP: Logged
CowPieMaster Member	posted 05-15-2006 05:05 PM quote: Originally posted by setnahkt: I would think so. A little googling (amazing what you can find on the Web) discloses that animal manure (not "waste" which would presumably include urine) is 75-85% water. That means they'd have to be cracking the water back to hydrogen and oxygen and recombining the hydrogen with carbon from manure to make hydrocarbons to get the better than 50% yield they are talking about. While not chemically impossible - you made manufactured "water gas" that way - it's got to use way more energy than you could possibly get out of it. If you used the total hog waste, including urine, the ratios would get even worse. I wonder if somebody mixed up gallons and liters somewhere? http://magnegas.com/technology/part5.htm IP: Logged
setnahkt Member	posted 05-15-2006 07:47 PM Magnegas, eh? How appropriate it's made from manure. Reminds me of Brown's Gas. IP: Logged
CowPieMaster Member	posted 05-16-2006 01:39 PM quote: Originally posted by setnahkt: Magnegas, eh? How appropriate it's made from manure. Reminds me of Brown's Gas. It is very interesting when the common process names are not used by some college professors to describe the process they are using. They also fail to mention the process improvement that will make the process work better to the point that it will be commercially accepted. It would be very easy to state that the waste is being gasified using X process and being converted to a liquid transportation fuel using Y process. The common feature of phd con artists is to promote energy produced while covering up the substantial electricity input like electricity grows on trees. IP: Logged

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