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Inventor harvests methane gas from ditches and ponds to power his moped
- NotSwift 5y agoPlease note that this is an art project and not a serious invention.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoWell... if it gets a few people to learn more about this topic then that's serious enough for me. Many have very strong opinions about energy and fossil fuels, but few really understand what they're talking about. For example they don't understand that natural gas is actually a very potent greenhouse gas and he's doing the world a favor by burning it. On a larger scale, we could certainly do more to stop methane from reaching the atmosphere, where it's economical.
- zabzonk 5y ago> he's doing the world a favor by burning it i.e. transforming it into carbon dioxide and water - both greenhouse gasses.
- Xylakant 5y agoTrue, but methane has a much stronger greenhouse effects than the resulting CO2 and water vapor. So that's still net-positive.
- zabzonk 5y agoActually, H2O is the most potent common greenhouse gas, then methane, and then CO2. If you burn methane (CH4) you end up with 2 molecules of H20 and one of CO2. Which to me would seem to be worse than one molecule of CH4 - but I might be wrong. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable could comment?
- konschubert 5y agoThe amount of water in the atmosphere is probably independent of how much water vapour we emit.
- labster 5y agoOutside the microscale, you’re essentially right. But water emissions have outsized effects as contrails from jets, by causing ice cloud condensation where it wouldn’t naturally occur. The heating is quite significant, as we discovered in studies of the September 11 air travel shutdown.
- Xylakant 5y agoWater is the only gas of the three that condenses in atmospheric conditions. The total amount of water vapor that air (or the atmosphere) can hold depends on temperature more than anything else, excess water remains in the atmosphere for days only. This seems like good overview. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11652-climate-myths-carbon-dioxide-isnt-the-most-important-greenhouse-gas/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11652-climate-myths-c...
- labster 5y agoBut ultimately on Earth, even in the dry polar latitudes, there’s certainly enough water to absorb everything in the H2O spectrum lines. The atmosphere is lousy with water, generally 1-3%, meaning it is usually the third most abundant gas.
- Xylakant 5y agoSure, but the question here is “does the water vapor from burning Methane add to the vapor in the atmosphere?”, which is different from “is water vapor the most important contributor to the greenhouse effect?”
- labster 5y agoWater is the most powerful greenhouse gas because it’s so abundant. Because it is so abundant though, the absorption lines are pretty much maxed. Besides the available quantum states (1 and 2 atom molecules cannot be GHGs) which make CFCs more powerful, the main impact on GHG strength is relative abundance. Methane is rare, so every atom is important, CO2 is uncommon, and H2O is common. I guess that makes CFCs a foil, lol.
- GrumpyNl 5y agoNext step, tank it directly from the cow.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI googled quickly and the summary says "A single cow on average produces between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year", so that would actually probably be feasible. Getting it would the challenge though. That said, if I were to over-engineer this, they could make barns with a closed air system that filters out any methane produced.
- NotSwift 5y agoThis might not be as far fetched as you assume. Large farms in the Netherlands are already required to have some filtering systems for reducing the output of Nitrogen-based compounds.
- usrusr 5y agoAgreed, the term "inventor" in the headline makes it seem unnecessarily naive. But even if it's art, I suspect that some objective benchmark comparison fits very well: assuming that you had serfs to do the dirty work for you, at eight man-hours for 20 km this would be clearly more efficient than having them carry you around in a sedan. And only slightly less efficient than a rickshaw. Great way to put our fossil every consumption into perspective!
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoNever is it claimed to be a GOOD invention, :p
- fy20 5y agoIf you want to do this seriously, you could probably do quite well by creating biogas from kitchen scraps: https://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/other-renewables/generating-biogas-zebz1305zstp https://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/other-renew...
- shash 5y agoGrowing up, my grandparents' house had a biogas plant, powered by cowdung (they had anywhere between 6 and 8 cows and bulls at the time). Looked something like this: https://www.peda.gov.in/nnbomp https://www.peda.gov.in/nnbomp Most of the cooking and some of the lighting for the house was done using this thing. Most of the bigger houses in the village had one.
- hannob 5y agoYou can probably do that, but don't delude yourself that you're doing anything for the environment. Methane itself is a very potent greenhouse gas. Everything you do with methane is only environmentally friendly if you have a very low leakage rate. Whatever homegrown DIY biogas facility you're creating very likely does not do that.
- mnw21cam 5y agoIf you're collecting something that would be produced anyway, it's going to be a net bonus.
- adrianN 5y agoA well aerated compost pile would likely produce less Methane.
- hannob 5y agoIdeally your kitchen waste would go into a facility that properly handles it and will use it for energy production, but in a properly controlled environment (and if that energy production is biogas by avoiding methane leakage as good as possible). Of course whether that happens depends a lot on where you're living.
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- nyanpasu64 5y agoWhat is the best way to deal with a pond lined with soil taken from dry ground, which emits methane bubbles nonstop when underwater? I'm concerned it's hurting life in the water.
- londons_explore 5y agoIt'll stop bubbling in a few months. Add a fountain to aerate the water to speed it up.
- adrianN 5y agoMethane is produced from anaerobic bacteria. If you add enough oxygen to the water and make sure the pond doesn't stratify, aerobic bacteria should take over and produce CO2 instead.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoWood gas vehicles were, well not uncommon: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html Due to the need for oil (major cause of second world war anyway) Nazi Germany produce 1/2 million cars run on wood gas. (Had to google this but just remembered the image from "The Knowledge" well worth a read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowledge-Rebuild-World-After-Apocalypse https://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowledge-Rebuild-World-After-Apoca...)
- cartoonworld 5y agoWood gas was really common and used to power all kinds of lighting before electrification. FEMA even created and distributed plans[0] for a Gasifier in the late 80's. You can find the PDF all over the internet, I think its a pretty cool looking project. Youtube is full of weird wood gas car projects such as this pickup truck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFw3Agg7SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFw3Agg7SM I don't see how these could be street legal in general, but pretty fun. [0] https://survivalring.org/pdf/fema_wood_gas_generator.pdf https://survivalring.org/pdf/fema_wood_gas_generator.pdf
- bserge 5y agoSaw a few pictures from North Korea using something like that. It's actually more interesting than I thought!
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago> Eight hours of hoeing in a ditch supplies him with enough fuel to ride his vehicle for 20 km Hmm, this is an art project but you can cycle 20km fairly leisurely in an hour. 8 hours of toiling in the ditches probably might be better used growing vegetables so your food isn’t being driven in?
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoMaybe, maybe not. It isn't like most folks can live off of a garden plot of a normal house, if you even have a garden plot. I cannot cycle 20km fairly leisurely in an hour: I live in a mountainous area, but lived most of my life on flat ground and going uphill is freaking difficult, even if I'm going at a leisurely speed - and sometimes, downhill is brakes all the way down. And I don't know how much this person drives. Most places I go to are within walking distance, and I'm pretty sure 8 hours of ditches would be less work than an entire summer of gardening (where I'd have to rent a plot, since I'm an apartment dweller). The majority of my foodstuffs are going to still be driven in, too.
- Hendrikto 5y ago> I cannot cycle 20km fairly leisurely in an hour: I live in a mountainous area Not a good counter argument. In this case, the moped will also use more fuel.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoSure, it isn't the best, but I know lots of other folks cannot either, and reasons vary. The point really is that cycling 20km isn't realistic for a wide swath of population. And sure, it might use more fuel... when you go uphill. Downhill, you might not even need the power.
- tinus_hn 5y agoYou can also leisurely coast downhill on a bicycle at a much higher speed than 20 km/h.
- maCDzP 5y agoThis made me chuckle. I am guessing he is trying to show how ridiculous our life style is without fossil fuels?
- rambambram 5y agoDefinitely. This is an art project (ArteZ is an art school in The Netherlands) and the naming suggests a lot of fun! - Slootmotor: already explained in article - Uitsloot: pun on exhaust gas and ditch - Plompstation: pun on gas station and pond/water
- the_rectifier 5y agoNot at all. Did you read the article?
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoLooks more like a proof of concept that you can get enough methane to run a moped from your local ponds.
- anfractuosity 5y agoRelating to the methane etc. in bogs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp sounds intriguing, curious how common it is.
- knowledge-coin 5y agohttps://youtu.be/cvqUgdtbiZQ https://youtu.be/cvqUgdtbiZQ
- cheesysam 5y agoI'm not sure disrupting the ecosystem at the bottom of the pond is an ecologically sound move. Biodiversity is important! Obviously I understand this is a proof of concept and not the solution to fossil fuels.
- celticninja 5y agoit probably speeds things up rather than killing them, and you know on the scale of BP pouring millions of oil into the ocean, I reckon what this guy is doing is absoloutley fine and the environmental damage is well within range of what the local environment can cope with and recover from within a reasonably small time frame.
- tiagod 5y agoIt's "probably" ok? Based on what?
- skinkestek 5y agoMethane is a much more potent green house gas than CO2.
- gruez 5y ago>and you know on the scale of BP pouring millions of oil into the ocean, I reckon what this guy is doing is absoloutley fine and the environmental damage is well within range of what the local environment can cope with and recover from within a reasonably small time frame. But BP serves millions of customers. If you normalize by that (ie. pollution divided by customers), my guess is that digging up ponds is more environmentally damaging than buying gas at the gas station.
- kiliantics 5y agoif you destroy the support systems that all organic life depends on, then you aren't serving the customers all that well...
- qwertox 5y agoSearching for the terms "secu" and "safe" doesn't yield any results. I know this is more of an art project, but in a photo he's driving through a city. What are the security implications of this? Also searching for "poly" doesn't yield any results, so I'm left to hope that the is using polycarbonate to provide some kind of safety shielding in case things go south. Also not on http://uitsloot.nl/sloot-motor/ http://uitsloot.nl/sloot-motor/
- pjc50 5y agoI don't understand what the security implications might be? It's just the normal gas that's available from mains gas everywhere, in a low-pressure tank. Probably no more dangerous than existing CNG/LPG vehicles.
- aphrax 5y agoLPG can be pretty dangerous in a car when not installed properly…
- kwhitefoot 5y agoMuch less dangerous as the pressure is very low and the quantity of gas very small.
- toomanybeersies 5y agoLPG is usually stored in a sturdy metal tank, and not a big balloon.
- tyingq 5y agoThe amount of methane to make a 50cc moped travel 20km is likely very little. And the tank is huge, so low pressure.
- aaron695 5y agoHis "Safety testing" video might have something? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxmQ3vFyVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxmQ3vFyVY
- smoyer 5y agoThis guy is clearly a modern wizard.
- ChrisRR 5y ago"He calls it “a quest on keeping the combustion engine alive in a fossil free future”." And why is that a good thing?
- derriz 5y agoThat comment seems tongue-in-cheek to me. But to attempt a serious answer to your question; a large quantity of CH4 is produced in nature which eventually - after about 8 years - turns to CO2 and water in the atmosphere. But carbon in the form of methane is about 30 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. If this hastens the natural process and turns the CH4 into CO2 immediately, then the earth will be subject to less greenhouse effect then just allowing the methane to naturally oxidize.
- slightwinder 5y agoIsn't this just a low-scale biogas-collector+engine? Biogas is already used in farming and commecial transportation since some decades. So the point here is that there are also other sources we can collect it from? This remindes me of those guys who collect grease from diners and others foodshops to refine it into fuel for their cars.
- wombatmobile 5y ago> “Eight hours of hoeing for a twenty kilometer drive will ensure that it will be the best twenty kilometers of your life.” True, and highly disruptive of orthodox economic theory which posits the primacy of convenience.
- Semiapies 5y agoOr the modern presumption that anyone has a better use for eight hours of their time than hoeing ditches and ponds in order to ride a moped the distance you could walk in half that time. I'm reminded of the biodiesel people of some years back, the ones who'd each hit all their local fast-food places to ask for waste grease so that they could make enough biodiesel to hit all the local fast-food places the next time.
- kleton 5y agoThere aren't a lot of places that use anaerobic digesters (fermenting waste to methane) to treat wastewater. Anheuser-Busch does it at their breweries because their wastewater is particularly rich. If more municipalities built those at their wastewater treatment plants, then it would be a sizeable amount of carbon-neutral fuel. There are already 1200 municipal wastewater treatment plants in the US that do this according to the EPA, but there are many major cities that do not. https://www.epa.gov/anaerobic-digestion/types-anaerobic-digesters https://www.epa.gov/anaerobic-digestion/types-anaerobic-dige...
- toomanybeersies 5y agoThe energy generated from biogas recovery at Melbourne's two main sewerage plants (~100 GWh) isn't even enough to make them net generators [1]. The main environmental benefit isn't actually from the carbon footprint of biogas, it's the reduced methane and NOx emissions from capturing the gas. [1] https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-data-and-education/environmental-issues/how-we-generate-energy/biogas https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-data-and-education/e...
- istjohn 5y agoI imagine it also greatly improves the air quality for anyone down wind from the treatment plants.
- noaccnt 5y agoYa, but I would guess the story is a bit more complicated. Consider (off the top of my head): I imagine there's a real concentration problem there. Sewage is incredibly diluted if you think about it (divide your estimate of how much organic waste you generate by the amount of water used in your water bill). If, instead, houses had grey water systems (i.e. the sink in you bathroom is used to fill up your toilet tank), or if black waters had a separate sewer (sure, not feasible in suburbia), the energy budget would change considerably. Either way, the affluent is full if nutrients even if we can't recover the energy. Nutrients our soil is rapidly being depleted of (thanks to our modern use of sewers!)
- jasonhansel 5y agoGiven that this involves disturbing the bottom of the pond, and that burning methane still produces CO2, this may actually be less environmentally friendly than just using gas.
- rualca 5y agoMethane is estimated to be an order of magnitude or two more powerful than CO2. https://unece.org/challenge https://unece.org/challenge
- jasonhansel 5y agoThat's if you release the methane, not if you burn it; assuming you burn all of it, the resulting CO2 is the bigger concern.
- rualca 5y ago> That's if you release the methane, not if you burn You're talking about a guy who is trapping methane that's already being released and burning it.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoThat's false, you should have read the link or just looked it up. And on a sidenote CH4 is converted into CO2 in the atmosphere sooner or later anyway.
- bullen 5y agoWhat is the yellow liquid: http://move.rupy.se/file/slootmotor3.png http://move.rupy.se/file/slootmotor3.png
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoProbably motor oil, these mopeds normally run on a fuel/oil mixture.
- bullen 5y agoTrue, so he injects the motor oil with the gas so the cylinder doesn't jam? But has he prooved there is only lubrication oil in there, oil also burns, maybe the methane bubble is just for show and he has actually converted the engine to some sort of diesel/ethanol/any other oil engine! ;D I want to se the engine stop when the ballon is empty! :\ Also now I watched the video: he spends more energy collecting the gas than it would have taken him to use a regular bike. But fun idea.
- cartoonworld 5y agoMoped is a 2-stroke engine, the fuel is also the lubricant, It won't combust on oil alone.
- aaron695 5y agoIt will be a flame trap. Gas bubbles through the water so the engine can't send fire back through to the gas bag.
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoI both read and watched the video. What was invented? Also, on a side note this sort of "environmental solution" reminds me of the 1970's beached whale disposal in Oregon. edit: reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale
- kumarvvr 5y agoSeems like learning about the bio system and setting up a methane producing aquarium at home will be easier.
- fettucini 5y agoIIRC the average male farts 20 times a day. If he installed a voluntary workplace "collector", he would improve the office environment considerably (as well as improving climate change) and harvest methane for free. For that special motorcyclist: how about a direct butt plug-in? A former co-worker especially fond of flatulent foods could likely get 10 km from a bean burrito.
- 1MachineElf 5y agoI wonder if "TailPipe" is trademarked.
- fleaaaa 5y agoFeel the nitro punch of acceleration.
- ortusdux 5y agoMy local landfill growing up had an decent sized methane burn-off flame running 24/7. I would put it on par with a wide open hot air balloon burner. My dad told me it was there to commemorate all the unknown meals that people threw in the trash, so I should always finish my dinner out of respect.
- tolerant_sol 5y agoAs a kid I am sure that made more sense than “to save the planet a little”.
- danuker 5y agoA thousand-mile journey begins with the first step. Even a little helps.
- oh_sigh 5y agoWith the obesity epidemic it is probably better to tell people they can just compost their food if there is too much and they can't eat it. And then cook a little less next time. I keep 100% of foodstuff out of my trash, and an added benefit is that you never get stinky trash that needs to be taken out. I take my trash out every 2 weeks and it never smells at all.
- solomonb 5y agoI seperate my compostables as well. I don't even use a trash bag in my bin anymore. My trash bin fill up so slowly that I go months without taking it to the street.
- Robadob 5y agoMy parents regularly throw out spare food (bread, meat, fruit) onto their lawn, local wildlife (birds, foxes, hedgehogs) always take it all within 24h.
- 5y ago
- calebm 5y agoI've heard of people collecting methane gas from composting toilets. It would probably be a big improvement.
- dheera 5y agoRead the title at first as "Investor harvests ..." and was like holy shit an investor that actually understands how to build something ....
- fidesomnes 5y ago"I hope he paid taxes." Snarky Californian take.
- catchmeifyoucan 5y agoCows I know release a lot of methane. I’m but sure if there’s tech to harness that.
- sandworm101 5y agoAre we allowed to just dig up river bottoms? In many places you can get in serious trouble for disturbing wetlands. Were there any permits needed for this?
- toomanybeersies 5y agoDisturbing wetlands is sort of the Dutch's thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder
- jacquesm 5y agoLots of funny wordplay there: uitstoot = emissions but uitsloot translates as 'from the ditch'. grasmaaier = lawnmower ('grass mower'), but 'gasmaaier' = grass mower running on gas.
- okareaman 5y agoA solar powered still mounted to the back that dumps methanol and ethanol into a tank would be interesting depending on where you live. If you live in an area with a lot of fruit (California Central Valley) you could ride around for little cost.
- Hnrobert42 5y agoThat guy has the perfect, steam punk look to go with his vaporium power autobike.
- andrew_ 5y agoI dig this - his travel is powered by his work ethic. Love to see it.
- emsign 5y ago> It takes the young Dutchman roughly eight hours to collect enough fuel to fill the tank and ride his moped for about 20 km. This is not comparable to the convenience of filling up a gasoline tank or charging an electric battery, but that is exactly the point. This shows the true cost of using fossil fuels has to be payed by something else (our planet) but not by its users.
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