Tuesday 21 December 2010<\/p>\n
That Dangblasted Biogas Digester…<\/p>\n
I\u2019m at last seeing some progress on the construction of the innards of my biogas digester! Work on the project has been interrupted by preparation for and the aftermath of the recent Heritage Festival. I\u2019ve also filmed and produced a short DVD to motivate the soccer team\u2019s application for funding to promote sport in the village.<\/p>\n
The digester is something of an experiment, since the design is my own, on the basis of extensive research on the web. Most designs are intended to service small communities or a family of at least four, often with at least one cow or some pigs and chickens. Since my cabin is intended as a temporary measure, inhabited only by me for the next year or two, there is no point in spending a lot of time and money on a concrete construction.<\/p>\n
The primary purpose of the digester is in any case to serve as an environmentally friendly sewerage treatment plant, with gas for cooking and organic fertiliser as by-products. Although septic tanks and latrines are widely used in the area, pollution of groundwater is an increasing concern. The ground here is a very sandy topsoil above unpredictable strata of clay, most of it relatively shallow. The groundwater is so close to the surface in some places that un-ballasted plastic holding tanks have been popped out of the ground after heavy rain.<\/p>\n
Although complete bio-digester plants can be bought, they are too expensive for most people in this area. Few people keep animals at all, let alone enough to justify a large unit, so I\u2019m hoping to come up with a design that can be fairly easily constructed from re-cycled plastic drums and readily available plastic plumbing fittings. Another criterion is that it should require neither specialised skills nor tools to construct. So far, I\u2019ve required only a pair of sturdy pliers, tin snips, some panel-pins, a bully-beef can and a heat-gun as tools. With care, a small fire could be used instead of the heat gun, and a cola tin could be cut with a pair of scissors. I\u2019ll include some photographs of the innards of the digester in a later post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday 21 December 2010 That Dangblasted Biogas Digester… I\u2019m at last seeing some progress on the construction of the innards of my biogas digester! Work on the project has been interrupted by preparation for and the aftermath of the recent … Continue reading