Changes

Biogas-fueled pump

147 bytes added, 03:20, 11 September 2012

no edit summary

[[Image:biogas pump.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Biogas irrigation pump. Photo: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/djfulford/3156710354/in/set-72157612011013426 d.j. fulford.]]]

Biomass, in the form of firewood, charcoal, agricultural residues, or dried animal dung is already the main energy resource for the majority of the poorer half of humanity, over 2 000 million people. They currently use 15% or more of total world energy, entirely in the form of biomass. Certain poorer countries depend on biomass fuels at present for over 90% of their energy needs (i.e. mainly for cooking fuel). It has been estimated that 53% of energy use in Africa, 17% in Asia and 8% in Latin America is currently met from biomass resources. Therefore biomass is already a huge and vital economic resource, although it is usually informally exploited mainly for cooking purposes and still remains rarely used for the production of shaft power via heat engines, and even less so for irrigation pumping. But using biogas for pumps in irrigation is gaining in popularity in India and elsewhere, as the savings in petroleum fuel prices are great. To get biogas, build a biomass digester. Farmers are using cow dung to create biogas or communities are using toilets to recycle their excrement.

Because biogas digesters have the capability of storing at least a 12 -hour supply of gas, an engine can be used that draws gas at quite a high rate. In fact the size of engine is not critical since it is only the number of hours it will run that are governed by the digester gas capacity.

An interesting option for irrigation by biogas power is to combine the digester sludge and the irrigation water in order to perform three functions simultaneously; i.e. irrigation, the application of fertilizer and waste disposal.

Winona

Akvopedia-spade, akvouser, bureaucrat, emailconfirmed, staff, susana-working-group-1, susana-working-group-10, susana-working-group-11, susana-working-group-12, susana-working-group-2, susana-working-group-3, susana-working-group-4, susana-working-group-5, susana-working-group-6, susana-working-group-7, susana-working-group-8, susana-working-group-9, susana-working-group-susana-member, administrator, widget editor

30,949

edits