[Aliska]

Composting generates heat, but I don't know how that could be converted to energy other than heating x square feet, and it would take a lot of compost to do much, but I wondered about it.

I'm thinking they are getting tax incentives and low-interest loans from the government for this project; I doubt if they are fronting all the money themselves, but I could be wrong about that.

The Europeans did something similar, primitive though it was. They brought their animals in during the winter and had kept them under their living quarters. That generated some heat and manure, probably didn't smell very good, but at least they probably didn't have to deal with flies in the winter.

The odor from confined animals is awful, and the flies in the summer are unreal. Not something you'd want to live around. Another way to heat your living quarters with manure is to cook with it like they do in some (can't resist this one) turd world countries.

[maine-iac7]

Composting generates heat, but I don't know how that could be converted to energy other than heating x square feet, and it would take a lot of compost to do much, but I wondered about it. I'm thinking they are getting tax incentives and low-interest loans from the government for this project; I doubt if they are fronting all the money themselves, but I could be wrong about that.

I had a friend in Utah who managed several large chicken barns with 100's of thousands of birds. He built his own furnaces that burned the chicken sh*t.This was in 1970!)

Ditto back here in New Eng. I did a feature article (in the early 1980's) on this concept here in my state - and did the lead on a farmer in my county that did the same.

It doesn't require mega outlays/loans/grants...Just some rolled up sleeves.

Trouble is, too many folk would rather rely on gov't handouts than sweat equity - and as a result, because of the high cost of heating the barns in N. E., the whole industry drained off into the southern states.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

My guess is that you can use the heat from the methane digester to heat a barn, a house, greenhouse, or something like that. You can use the product, the night soil for fertilizer, or, compress it and burn it (not sure about this) and extract more heat.

My father had a cold frame that he would use to start seedlings. In early March he would dig a pit about 2 feet deep, dump in a foot of manure cover it with a foot of topsoil and plant. The heat from the composting manure would provide heat for the seedlings on cold nights.

When horses were still a primary form of transportation, there were some french farms that would grow through the winter. They would collect the manure in rows, cover with topsoil, and plant their crop, usually lettuce or radishes, some crop that didn't take 120 days to grow. Bell jars covered the crop, and at night they rolled out a canvas covering to retain the heat. You could only do this for specialty crops, but it was still fresh produce in the winter.

Again, these are curiosities. But you use what you have, and what your circumstances dictate. I doubt that we will go back to manure as direct heat source anytime soon, but we may be able to use it to create methane, which is a bit more transportable and acceptable heat source.