Biogas in Quebec with household waste

Renewable energies except solar electric or thermal (seeforums dedicated below): wind turbines, energy from the sea, hydraulic and hydroelectricity, biomass, biogas, deep geothermal energy ...
Ahmed
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by Ahmed » 21/08/08, 21:06

Interesting arguments on both sides ...

I believe that we must not mix the problem of WET waste already present, which must be dealt with, and that of future waste, the production of which should imperatively be limited.
Likewise, do not mix up household waste and sewage sludge.

My position is that a technique, at a certain stage of development and in a given context, may very well be suitable for certain uses and be inappropriate for others; hence the interest of a "mix" of solutions.

Regarding nuclear power, I find Jonule's remark relevant: the interest in nuclear power decreases as we try to take into account all of what it encompasses. Would it be possible to envisage extracting the uranium ore other than with a foreign workforce that is not very demanding (by necessity) in terms of security?
At the other end of the chain, how, for example, can we integrate the necessarily unreliable estimates of the cost of monitoring old sites over a few hundred years?

In your last post, Jonule, you say, quoting Véolia:
"Methanization is the natural treatment method for organic waste."

That it suits Veolia, it is quite possible, but for me, it is a total heresy. Right from the wording, when we speak of "organic waste", we are making an implicit value judgment.

Carbonaceous matter is the support of life, it undergoes a certain number of transformations during its cycle, but remains a noble product and it cannot be taxed as waste except through ignorance. There are other ways than methanization to reincorporate carbon into the soil.

@ C moa:
All the slurry would have been transformed into fertilizer.

We understand that this project has aroused opposition! This is an example of a problem taken upside down: we go to great lengths to artificialize animal husbandry as much as possible, thereby producing toxic waste *, then building a factory to treat it at great expense in order to 'make it something usable ...
Indeed, why make it simple when you can make it complicated? Creating a problem and solving it is always work!

* instead of producing manure, directly usable by the farmer and of high agronomic value.
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Christine
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by Christine » 21/08/08, 21:59

C moa wrote:So the problem in the impact study of a CET is notably the creation Nature of greenhouse gases (some speak of the blow of biogas you see that there is no good in organic : Cheesy: ), in particular CH4 which is 21 times more problematic than CO2. These emanations will last for several decades. In addition, these CETs cannot be airtight in order to keep them because the degassing would still take place and above all we would quickly have a rise in pressure in the "bell" with all the risks that this represents. Suddenly, we install vents and flares.


Well yes, that's what we were saying, it has nothing to do with the subject of digesters. Please read the posts of other contributors - me, in locurence.

C moa wrote:Now these explanations given, you will see my first intervention in a new light.

Not really. In fact not at all: we understood what you wanted to say, but even if you repeat it, it still has nothing to do.

I would like us to seek to optimize these systems rather than relying only on Mother Nature

No one has said otherwise.

- The main problem is that the implementation of anaerobic digestion is optimal in an anaerobic environment so in a small reactor it will take a little time for it to start.

So what ? It is a parameter, not an obstacle.

In a CET for example, it is considered that at least 10 m of waste is needed for anaerobic digestion to be optimal.

That's still not what we're talking about. If you want we can create a topic especially for CET gases.
- Methanation is a very slow process. Again if in the TEC we manage to produce tens, see hundreds of M3 per day it is only thanks to the volume of decomposing waste. The production will be very low daily and before heating buildings with that ....

Heating buildings with that ... maybe. But - come on, a little stretch of the imagination - aren't there other applications? Perhaps we should ask the Chinese who have been cooking on biogas fires for hundreds of years what they think?

- Residues normally transformed into fertilizer, okay but will it be used ?? I ask the question because beyond the ecological question, lobbies e tuti quanti. Do not forget that a farmer is above all a business manager with revenues, expenses, expenses .... If tomorrow you arrive with a cheap natural product, as effective as synthetic products and as easy to implement, do not think that he will fire you because he prefers to pollute and spend more. The truth is that most natural fertilizers are certainly cheaper but often more difficult to apply, less effective. What he wins on one side is lost ten times on the other.
Yes, they are going to be used. Here again, let's have a little imagination and ask what farmers in northern European countries think about it, who fertilize their fields with human piss. Are they masochists? Don't they know how to count?
"It is more difficult to spread, less effective" s etc: in any case the message of the lobbies has passed! After all, oil, nuclear and chemical inputs, that's all there is to it! Otherwise we wouldn't use them. CQFD.

I think that in Quebec, there was a good salesperson who went there, that he did his job properly, as asked by his boss, but that feedback will show that it is also effective than sniffer planes.

Of course there is an announcement effect. So what ?

ZEEEEN. AHUMMMM. (the regulars will understand me)
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Christine
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by Christine » 21/08/08, 22:06

A question for Ahmed:
Ahmed wrote: Right from the wording, when we speak of "organic waste", we are making an implicit value judgment.

How does the word "organic waste" imply a value judgment for you?

They are simply fermentable waste, to be distinguished from those which are not, such as glass, plastic (except biodegradable, of course) etc. Nothing else.
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by C moa » 22/08/08, 09:11

Christine wrote:Well yes, that's what we were saying, it has nothing to do with the subject of digesters. Please read the posts of other contributors - me, in locurence.

: Shock: Well in fact this has everything to do because:
- At the beginning of the subject christophe presented the case by saying that we knew the weak points of biogas (without giving any further explanation I grant you);
- Suddenly a dialogue of the deaf began;
- I just humbly wanted to explain the weak points of the methanization of organic materials;
- What better example than that of TECs and WWTPs to illustrate them since we know that these are the installations which today produce the most biogas ??
- I certainly spent time explaining what the CET are but it's also that Jonule had asked me. I had obviously confused him at the start ....

- The main problem is that the implementation of anaerobic digestion is optimal in an anaerobic environment so in a small reactor it will take a little time for it to start.

So what ? It is a parameter, not an obstacle.

In a CET for example, it is considered that at least 10 m of waste is needed for anaerobic digestion to be optimal.

That's still not what we're talking about. If you want we can create a topic especially for CET gases.

Anaerobic, volume of waste and time are all parameters which are obstacles in the case of biodigesters because:
- the regular supply of organic matter also creates a supply of oxygen which will necessarily slow down methanization;
- the volume is an essential parameter since it is this which defines the volume of gas emitted and the capacity of the assembly to produce gas. To put it simply, if you only have one or two meters of waste, you will have great difficulty in producing methanization;
- time, under optimal conditions, ie without any oxygen supply, it takes several weeks before anaerobic digestion begins and above all it is maintained for several years. The cycle is very slow so what do we do with the incoming waste?

Heating buildings with that ... maybe. But - come on, a little stretch of the imagination - aren't there other applications? Perhaps we should ask the Chinese who have been cooking on biogas fires for hundreds of years what they think?

Maybe you misread the article but it happens in Quebec not in China. The objective is indeed to "heat buildings, produce electricity or fuel for vehicles". Just like Jonule, who presented us with a lot of effective projects, I think it is suitable for developing countries, but here I have doubts. At my parents' house we had a gas plate, there were 6 of us and the bottle lasted about 3 months. If we had plugged it into a boiler, it would only have lasted a few days .... The very nature of their waste is also very different.

Yes, they are going to be used. Here again, let's have a little imagination and ask what farmers in northern European countries think about it, who fertilize their fields with human piss. Are they masochists? Don't they know how to count?

You yourself illustrate the difficulty. Here we are not talking about urine but about compost. Urine is very easy to spread while compost over hundreds of hectares ...
As I often say, I don't ask you to take my word for it, take your car or your bike, go to a farm and talk to a farmer. You will better understand their constraints.
"It is more difficult to spread, less effective" s etc: in any case the message of the lobbies has passed! After all, oil, nuclear and chemical inputs, that's all there is to it! Otherwise we wouldn't use them. CQFD.

I don't think I'm influenced by any lobby, but I tend to look at the numbers in a "scientific" way (I assure you that's not a bad word. : Cheesy: ) and in this case, biogas, even if it is natural, under current conditions is not suited to our consumer societies.

I think I've done the tour, let's make an appointment in 2 or 3 years and go see Quebec to see the results. I am ready to admit my mistakes if it works as they hope, I will even promote them if it does.
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by C moa » 22/08/08, 09:38

Ahmed wrote:Regarding nuclear power, I find Jonule's remark relevant: the interest in nuclear power decreases as we try to take into account all of what it encompasses.

We can present it in the sense that we want but today nuclear power is the means of production of electricity which rejects the least CO2 per kW (complete cycle taken into account from construction to deconstruction via the 'operation). Come behind gas then fuel oil and finally coal which is absolutely an eyesore in terms of rejection.
Would it be possible to consider extracting the uranium ore other than with a foreign workforce that is not very demanding (by necessity) in terms of security?

Foreign labor is in fact local because the mines are abroad. Regarding insecurity, this is less and less true. The mines are generally operated by large international groups and these parameters are taken very seriously.
At the other end of the chain, how, for example, can we integrate the necessarily unreliable estimates of the cost of monitoring old sites over a few hundred years?

: Shock: I don't see what can make you say that these estimates are unreliable. FYI, Chinon was the first sections of Chinon that have been stopped for a long time and their failure is going much faster than initially expected. If there were any mistakes, it was mostly in the right direction.
This is an example of a problem taken upside down: we go to great lengths to artificialize animal husbandry as much as possible, thereby producing toxic waste *, then building a factory to treat it at great expense in order to 'make it something usable ...

It is very true what you say but we are all responsible for it. The poultry and pig that I buy on the farm near my house is roughly 10 to 15% more expensive than in the supermarket (but in terms of taste, it is x times better). Obviously the supermarkets get supplies from these farms in battery because we want the cheapest and that's it.
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the middle
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by the middle » 22/08/08, 09:55

Hello Italy, :D
Foreign labor is in fact local because the mines are abroad. Regarding insecurity, this is less and less true. The mines are generally operated by large international groups and these parameters are taken very seriously.

I hope you are telling the truth, pcq I saw a report which proved the opposite. (At least for a mine)
A bull driver caught cancer, and was fired, and nothing to cure him; ditto for his colleagues ...
The question is when is the report :?
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by C moa » 22/08/08, 10:14

lejustemilieu wrote:Hello Italy, :D
Foreign labor is in fact local because the mines are abroad. Regarding insecurity, this is less and less true. The mines are generally operated by large international groups and these parameters are taken very seriously.

I hope you are telling the truth, pcq I saw a report which proved the opposite. (At least for a mine)
A bull driver caught cancer, and was fired, and nothing to cure him; ditto for his colleagues ...
The question is when is the report :?

I am convinced that we do not live in a world of care bears, that there is still a lot to do and especially that we will always find people disrespectful of men and rules, whatever the regions of the world ( cf. metal europe and it is in France).
However, globalization has at least brought one good thing is that all the subsidiaries of large international groups must operate in the same way.
Whether TOTAL, BP, Schlumberger, Michelin, Bouygues, EXXON, Areva, Technip, ENI, Vinci ... all have a safety, environment and sustainable development policy. They all compare themselves to each other, all report to their shareholders on these matters. They regularly audit their subsidiaries and their partners (ie between them, TOTAL will audit BP which will audit SHELL ...). A branch manager knows that his results must be good if he is to be promoted.

Unions have been formed in these countries and are very demanding, governments are also more and more watching over their rejections and are fining those who do not respect the directives or pollute. And very clearly, significant pollution on a site can cause future contracts to be lost.
Much remains to be done but it is going in the right direction.
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by jonule » 22/08/08, 10:19

C moa wrote:And in 2050, we will have fusion reactors so we can dismantle the wind turbines that spoil the landscape !! By then we will have hopefully also solved the cold fusion ....

uh wait ... who that, "us", and "we"? you mean you come here to promote nuclear? well you will be received! : Mrgreen:
in 2050 the nuclear reactors will all have been shut down for a long time, one of the old ones will have already fired like Chernobyl if it is not 2, because this French etchnology will have been poorly translated into Chinese or Hindu, and everyone will be against ...

+ seriously:
According to you, a CET has "a little bit" to do with a Biogas installation, but it's not the same, that's all, there is no recovery of biogas or fertilizer.

question: can a TEC receive nuclear waste? in the case of recovered gas, can they mix, to give what?

wastewater treatment plants are expensive and stink. biogas and fertilizers are not valued either (at their fair value, I mean).

when you say that there is not only good in organic I answer: if, precisely the biogas (not of fossil origin) is to be recovered, not to let evaporate wasted. this would drastically reduce the greenhouse effects, which give us, by the way, a disgusting time (temperature but also rising humidity, clouds etc.).

> you say CH4 21 times worse than CO2, on what criteria?
like I said, burning CH4 gives H20 and little CO2.

as you say the flares of the CET burn biogas, it is a waste without name.

> you say "use mother nature's gas with a turbine, a boiler": just by a boiler? an example ?

> You see, Quebec chose neither the CET nor the STEP: it chose a Biogas installation, the thread of the subject, you are completely irrelevant, that's what I was saying; well, more precisely you are trying to resell a prehistoric installation, of which I will be curious to have a financial balance sheet in relation to the valuation of raw materials ... sorry to take it like that, but I do not see what you bring to better than a biogas installation ...

a CET is aerobic, even at 10m thick it is not anaerobic, and the performance is + only mediocre, we say that the difference is waterproofing. right?
moreover, as you say, anaerobic methanization is much faster, this is the major advantage of this technology unlike the CET, which can even be activated with enzymes (septic tank type).

no a natural product is no less effective than a chemical product in terms of fertilizer, it is propaganda to say that, without any basis in + ... especially that the doses only did that increase, normal for a soil which is chemically treated and which serves only as a substrate. you're only reasoning in NPK quantity I'm talking about quality, would you say that a producer who chose intensive would have better quality? well no.

I don't see what a sniffer plane is.

to continue your controversy on nuclear energy (...) I see that you are giving data that is supposed to reassure the reader, so that's why I see that you are a specialist who uses figures, we agree. however, you make me (us) laugh when you say that "inspections are carried out, and as soon as there is a problem, we stop": haha, we don't stop like that already, then, how come have there been so many accidents then? how is it that ASn allows sites like SOCATRI to be operated alros that problems had already been reported?
So sorry I would like to believe you but experience shows the opposite, it would have taken zero defects for this technology to be accepted by the public, which is not the case. I can see your remark "there was an earthquake, normally nonexistent, and we did nothing, we continued as if nothing had happened": great, I can see the seriousness; If you read the quote correctly, the earthquake occurred in 2006.


for your 4 reactors, "On their own, they supply electricity to nearly half of North-West France,
Center to Brittany "which leaves a lot of room for wind turbines, especially on the coast.
source:
http://prestataires-nucleaire.edf.com/d ... i_id=71687

in fact, it takes 40 years to dismantle a plant. who will pay ? is it the same for wind turbines?

on the loire there is water, as it is already polluted by the power stations and other factories, one has only to put electric dams. I don't see why a natural cause will receive more nuclear power plants than wind power! the cooling chimneys of the 4 power plants have been lowered, but this still pollutes the low environment +: logical, no?

I no longer want to talk about nuclear on this wire nor about wind turbines, I ask the moderators and the WEBMASTER.

your remark about suicides is ridiculous and disrespectful. Cmoa, I see that many agree to "discuss with you" on certain points, which are erroneous to you.
Last edited by jonule the 22 / 08 / 08, 10: 21, 1 edited once.
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jonule
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by jonule » 22/08/08, 10:21

Anaerobic, volume of waste and time are all parameters which are obstacles in the case of biodigesters because:
- the regular supply of organic matter also creates a supply of oxygen which will necessarily slow down the anaerobic digestion; - time, under optimal conditions, that is to say without any oxygen supply, it takes several weeks before the anaerobic digestion begins and above all it is maintained for several years. The cycle is very slow so what do we do with the incoming waste?


no, but are you doing it on purpose?

do you want to promote the fact that aerobic methanation is faster and more profitable than anaerobic methanization?

don't you understand what we're telling you?
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by jonule » 22/08/08, 10:26

C moa wrote:I'm convinced that we don't live in a world of care bears


are we the care bears, Mr I defend nuclear power?
as you say, extracting uranium in France is shameful, moreover it is done more, it does not pass the standard on releases to the environment ISO14001, we also wonder how the power stations manage to pass them: well it's simple, confusion on artificial and natural radioactivity, transparency secret defense ... alros it's easier DEONTOLOGICALLY to go do it at the NIger?

However, globalization has at least brought one good thing is that all the subsidiaries of large international groups must operate in the same way, whether TOTAL, BP, Schlumberger, Michelin, Bouygues, EXXON, Areva, Technip, ENI, Vinci ... all have a safety, environment and sustainable development policy.

I see, it continues ..; no but who is this troll?

Unions have been formed in these countries and are very demanding, governments are also more and more watching over their rejections and are fining those who do not respect the directives or pollute.

but we just want to believe you, so a little report will be better than a long speech?








by the way: what is the connection with methanization?
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