Reply To: The Harmful Economics of Biofuels

[Wesley Bruce]

JimmyT wrote: There is a caveat to biodigestion. The microorganisms involved require warm temperatures. Warmer than we have here in North America during the half of the year. So you have to provide some heat source to warm the digester, and this somewhat lessens the benefit. They use this method extensively in India where the temperatures are somewhat warmer year-round.
Now, if we only had some source of low level waste heat to do that. Hmm…..

Several research teams and commercial users have done biogas in Europe and north America including Canada and Alaska. The key is insulation and in some cases putting the thing in a simple greenhouse. Where some of the methane is burned on site to power something the waste heat can be used to heat it to optimal temperature. Many new sewerage works built today are Anaerobic. Some built in Asia and France are inside glass skyscrapers. Given these elements and lots of spare heat from an FF unit it should work well.