Modern day Jean Pain Experiment

[renewablejohn]

Thanks to the Navitron forum highlighting the works of Jean Pain I am now convinced he was heading in the right direction.

I have decided to do a modern day interpretation of his original works using wherever possible off the shelf technology.

Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

The aim would be virtual self sufficiency in food and fuel with an income derived from generating electricity and selling it to the grid. 

Woodchip would be the primary source of energy using a digester as per Jean Pain for generator start up and transport and a vedbil type system for continuous running.

Generator would need to be about 80kw to provide a reasonable income

[Richard Owen]

Lot's of warm noises from energy minister on radio this morning talking about easing access to grid for small generators.

Which means that it's difficult for small generators to get on the grid.

It might be worth contacting your local distribution company to see how much it would cost to connect an 80KW genny to the grid?

It would be an interesting number to put in your business plan.

[renewablejohn]

Richard

I am looking at a wind energy company installing a WES 18  80kw wind turbine with a gas fired generator backup so in theory the wind energy company will pay the connection charge.

In the past I have been quoted 20k just for the connection of 3 cables to the grid. Its just a rip off.   

[welshboy]

Hi ,Be careful with the processing of wood biomass because of possible health problems when handling fungi/mould in a close environment. I've cut and pasted the below - I think its related to Farmers Lung
Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis (HP) is caused by the inhalation of fungi spores. Repeated exposure cause the alveoli sacs of the lungs to become inflamed. Parts of the lung may then develop fibrous scar tissue which cease to function normally in breathing9. Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis is an immunologically mediated lung disease involving T-cells and lymphocytes10 The disease is also known as extrinsic allergic alveolitis. Symptoms are transient fever, hyperemia (deficient oxygenation of the blood), myalgia (pain in the muscles), arthralgia (pain in one or more joints), dyspnea (labored breathing) and cough.10 Other documented symptoms include mild gastro-intestinal disorder, chronic fatigue, unsteady gait when walking, and diminished memory11A.

Because Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis is an allergic disease, there is a cause and an effect directly in response to contact with an allergen. The period of sensitization before a reaction occurs may be as long as six months or even years8. Once sensitized, however, the patient will exhibit symptoms on contact with any amount of the allergen. A classic characteristic of HP is that a symptomatic patient will recover to full health and have no symptoms once removed from the allergen. If, however, the patient is exposed to any amount of the allergen again, acute symptoms recur within hours of

[Ivan]

Wood has virtually no nitrogen - so digesters don't like it. You'll need to add something nitrogen-rich, otherwise you'll produce virtually no methane. Urine is high nitrogen - so that might be an option. Why not also consider lesser fuels - such as used horse or cow bedding - that would be free rather than costing money, and would probably work better. Woodchips are best gassified rather than digested, in my opinnion, for what it's worth

[billi]

I think Jean pain used green wood , leaves and smaller branches that he was harvesting from cleaning forests and the lower branches , vegetation

There is then a balanced mix of wood and green waste involved .
He made studies about the right chipper and developed woodchippers , these are on the market and i have a brochure of them including prices


If i find the list about what plants or mixtures produce the most biogas  i will add on

Certainly green waste better then moopoo (

Regards Billi

[renewablejohn]

Welshboy

Thanks for the warning as a farmer I wear a mask for just about any job. Seen to many young farmers with Farmers Lung.

Ivan

I saw the Jean Pain video I think he used moopoo as a primer I will have to make do with horse poo.
Problem I have already encountered with a gasifier is how to clean the gas sufficient not to damage an IC engine.
 
Billi

I will also be using mainly brash as the moisture content will be higher than the roundwood which I want to keep for the boilers. I am still looking for a chipper for the roundwood but the brash will be harvested with a piranha shredder.
If it helps I have plenty of grass and a forager to feed the digester.

[martin]

If you want to save a few bob on the WES, they sometimes flog reconditioned 80s at a substantial discount over the new price (last time I spoke to them on behalf of a client)

[Ivan]

I don't think horse poo will be any good to get your digester going. Horses aren't  ruminates, are they? You need an animal with multiple, fermenting stomachs - the idea is that the cow is a kind of biogas digester itself, and you're utilising its bacteria culture - hence the preference for temperatures close to body temperature.

[renewablejohn]

Martin

Already going down that route just trying to find out whether the control circuits have been updated on the refurb to work with the generator.

[renewablejohn]

Have made a demonstration gas holder out of 2 x 25 litre plastic oil drums. tops chopped off one turned upside down and fitted into the other .Gas outlet pipe connected filled with 3/4 sawdust and water. Now have to wait 2 weeks and see what happens. Will upload pictures when I have found the camera.

If successful next phase will be to do the same with 2 x 1500 ltr fruit tanks. I am having difficulty finding said tanks does anybody know a cheap source 50 mile radius of lancashire.

Spoke to our local envirolink department regarding Anerobic Digestion and according to them the process does not work with woodchip. Hope we find out in two weeks time that they are wrong and Jean Pain is right.

[Ivan]

Yes, I've read that wood isn't much good. It's got virtually no nitrogen. Not sure if adding bark might bring the balance back to some extent. I would suggest getting something nitrogen-rich into it as well, or chances of success are low. There are various sources - urine being the easiest, then nitrogen-rich plants - eg clover, legume roots, or maybe even nitrogen fertiliser.

I'm planning to scale up my grass-digester shortly. The principle seems to work (my 20litre cubie keeps blowing up like a balloon), but it's very temperature sensitive - I've got it in the sun, so it tends to do quite well in sunny weather, but when we have not much sunshine for a week, performance is low. The optimum temperature is either 35-40 or 50-60. I'm planning to experiment using an insulated hot water cylinder, with some solar heating, and try the mesophillic range - supposed to be more efficient.

[renewablejohn]

Ivan

will be keeping mine in the polytunnel to retain the heat hopefully the 1500 ltr black containers should have some useful solar gain.

[renewablejohn]

Thanks to the Navitron forum highlighting the works of Jean Pain I am now convinced he was heading in the right direction.

I have decided to do a modern day interpretation of his original works using wherever possible off the shelf technology.

Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

The aim would be virtual self sufficiency in food and fuel with an income derived from generating electricity and selling it to the grid. 

Woodchip would be the primary source of energy using a digester as per Jean Pain for generator start up and transport and a vedbil type system for continuous running.

Generator would need to be about 80kw to provide a reasonable income

Have been offered a secondhand methane lister engine and generator to generate 800kw electric. I know it is 10 times bigger than I originally thought but at 60k it must be worth a punt. Grid connection is fine upto 2.2 Mw. Any views 

[Ivan]

John,

Any old petrol engine will run on methane. The conversion kit is only a few hundred pounds, even for engine outputs of 200kW (ie car engines!). Also, if you use a car engine, they're cheap, easily replaced etc. You could run the methane into a non-common rail diesel egnine too, but you'll need to retain 20% diesel for ignition. Converting petrol engines to run on methane is relatively easy, and if you can run the engine flat out, you won't have the throttle losses - which one of the main factors in the lower efficiency of petrol engines.

One other point: there seems to be a big distinction between <50kW and >50kW grid connections. I'd suggest that you go for 50kW to begin with, to keep the connection costs down and the revenue costs up. As if I didn't have enough projects, I considered a CHP system running on mains gas for my Lister D - but I'll never get as far as even starting it.