10,000 cows can power 1,000 servers

zod

Researchers at Hewlett Packard Co.'s HP Labs presented a paper on using cow manure from dairy farms and cattle feedlots and other "digested farm waste" to generate electricity to an American Society of Mechanical Engineers conference held this week.

In the paper, the research team calculates that "a hypothetical farm of 10,000 dairy cows" could power a 1 MW data center -- or on the order of 1,000 servers.

source

Seems to me that this is a no brainer for a dairy co-op in Ireland to get involved in ?

AngryHippie

Depends on the feed I'd imagine, it would also depend on whehter you want to strip the soil of that manure as a natural fertilizer, just to use it to power some servers only to have to replace the manure with chemically manufacture NPK.
Doubt its much of a recovery when thats factored in. Nice idea though.

jacaranda

zod wrote: »

Researchers at Hewlett Packard Co.'s HP Labs presented a paper on using cow manure from dairy farms and cattle feedlots and other "digested farm waste" to generate electricity to an American Society of Mechanical Engineers conference held this week.

In the paper, the research team calculates that "a hypothetical farm of 10,000 dairy cows" could power a 1 MW data center -- or on the order of 1,000 servers.

source

Seems to me that this is a no brainer for a dairy co-op in Ireland to get involved in ?

Cars used to run on methane gas collected from pig or cattle sheds during the war. They had big floppy balloons of gas on the roof and were not uncommon.

The problem, of course, is how to collect the gas, how to store it, and how to transport it to the place where it will be turned into electricity. I suspect the costs involved in doing all that would be relatively expensive enough to outweigh the benefits.

djpbarry

jacaranda wrote: »

The problem, of course, is how to collect the gas, how to store it, and how to transport it to the place where it will be turned into electricity. I suspect the costs involved in doing all that would be relatively expensive enough to outweigh the benefits.

Not really - anaerobic digesters are quite common in the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. Essentially it's just a capped, airtight slurry pit with a pipe running to wherever the fuel is needed. Manufacturers such as Sintex now produce these units commercially.

jacaranda

djpbarry wrote: »

Not really - anaerobic digesters are quite common in the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. Essentially it's just a capped, airtight slurry pit with a pipe running to wherever the fuel is needed. Manufacturers such as Sintex now produce these units commercially.

According to the articles in the link, the biogas being produce here is from household waste. It has to be left to rot for a few days, (no mention of where this happens or if there are odours as a result), and is then separated into pulp and liquid. The liquid is then poured into the machine and seems to give a limited supply of gas. Not enough to heat water, according to one user, but enough to run a gas cooker for the house. it seems like a lot of work, and it may well be that some Indians are prepared to go to the considerable effort and inconvenience required, but whether European or American householders would be so prepared remains doubtful.

While I am sure that any resulting gas could be used to generate electricity, it seems the practical problems would render it unlikely, as the quantity of gas required to run a domestic type generator would be substantial.

To try to add together the waste from many slurry pits to try to power a commercial generating electricity plant also seems unlikely as the problem then is how to collect enough gas from what would be many hundreds or thousands of slurry pits and get it to the electricity plant.

I suppose an interesting use might be to store the gas on site and use it to power a car or farm machinery, and it would have to be compressed and stored in high pressure containers (like lpg bottles), although this is unlikely to be very popular as the process of compressing the gas and bottling it is relatively dangerous.

zod

Seems it has been done commercially :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHK_qfjkYg8

robtri

for some reason i cant see this working to well....

the amount of crap needed to put out any sort of power to make a difference would be immense... and completely impractical...

djpbarry

jacaranda wrote: »

To try to add together the waste from many slurry pits to try to power a commercial generating electricity plant also seems unlikely as the problem then is how to collect enough gas from what would be many hundreds or thousands of slurry pits and get it to the electricity plant.

Surely that would depend on the size of the plant?

robtri wrote: »

for some reason i cant see this working to well....

the amount of crap needed to put out any sort of power to make a difference would be immense... and completely impractical...

But biogas is already produced commercially. Germany, for example, had about 600 MW of installed biogas capacity in 2006 (source). As far as I am aware, that figure has since climbed to over 1 GW.

jacaranda

zod wrote: »

Seems it has been done commercially :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHK_qfjkYg8

I think its wonderful to make energy from waste, but suspect the amount of gas that is limited. To be fair, the CEO of the company in the film doesn't say how much gas is produced, or what the production cost per litre of LPS is, but he only says its enough to power an on site generator, or a gas boiler, or some vehicles.

I suspect the amount of gas produced from what looks like quite expensive plant and on going labour costs may not be vast. Any idea how much gas they produce per annum from this operation?

jacaranda

djpbarry wrote: »

Surely that would depend on the size of the plant?
But biogas is already produced commercially. Germany, for example, had about 600 MW of installed biogas capacity in 2006 (source). As far as I am aware, that figure has since climbed to over 1 GW.

Of course it would depend on the size of the plant. I'd be keen to see teh accounts for teh German experience as I suspect ( and I may be wrong and hope I am) that it's not profit making and needs to be subsidised.

Cookie_Monster

There's a digester some-where in Ireland iirc. I think "Ear to the ground" did a piece on it. Essentially all the local animal and food waste goes in and local sewage and sludge companies pay them low rates to empty their tankers into in too. It powers (or helps power) the local village.

Potentially its a good idea. For example I'm sure something similar can be done with human waste in the Poolbeg treatment plant without much conversion hassle maybe?

jacaranda

Any idea where it is as I'd love to visit and find out more?

djpbarry

jacaranda wrote: »

I'd be keen to see teh accounts for teh German experience as I suspect ( and I may be wrong and hope I am) that it's not profit making...

Based purely on electricity generation, possibly not. However, consider that each plant also doubles as a waste management facility and can charge a 'tipping fee' for raw materials, while it is also possible to sell the waste digestate as fertiliser.

robtri

djpbarry wrote: »

Surely that would depend on the size of the plant?
But biogas is already produced commercially. Germany, for example, had about 600 MW of installed biogas capacity in 2006 (source). As far as I am aware, that figure has since climbed to over 1 GW.

But Biogas.. is produced froma lot more than Sh*te....
biogas can be produced from any organic compound...
so of this 600mw how much os from human excrement or animal excrement... as thats what this thread is about

rayh

jacaranda wrote: »

Any idea where it is as I'd love to visit and find out more?

have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVC5xIM6C-E

djpbarry

robtri wrote: »

so of this 600mw how much os from human excrement or animal excrement...

My understanding is that the ratio is approximately 4:1 agricultural waste:domestic waste.

Macha

jacaranda wrote: »

Any idea where it is as I'd love to visit and find out more?

There's a dairy farmer in Wexford that does it. Ah, here are some details, including contact details:

http://www.seai.ie/uploadedfiles/RenewableEnergy/anaerobicdigestion.pdf

robtri

djpbarry wrote: »

My understanding is that the ratio is approximately 4:1 agricultural waste:domestic waste.

My understanding was the vast majority of Bio Gas in germaney was from Corn Crop, and other plant material...

Very little comes for litterally "Sh*T"

jacaranda

taconnol wrote: »

There's a dairy farmer in Wexford that does it. Ah, here are some details, including contact details:

http://www.seai.ie/uploadedfiles/RenewableEnergy/anaerobicdigestion.pdf

If the figures here are accurate, then this is very impressive.

djpbarry

robtri wrote: »

My understanding was the vast majority of Bio Gas in germaney was from Corn Crop, and other plant material...

Sorry - getting my wires crossed. I was referring specifically to 'slurry-powered' facilities. As far as I know, most biogas in Germany is produced from so-called 'energy crops', yes, and going forward that will probably continue to be the case. However, crop/food residues also have relatively large energy potentials and the contribution from manures is not insignificant. Furthermore, the value of such processes in the context of waste management also have to be taken into consideration.

pumpkinsoup

jacaranda wrote: »

Any idea where it is as I'd love to visit and find out more?

There are several anaerobic digesters around the country. (There's an older one at the main landfill site in Cork city). They're all quite small. Any proposals to build bigger ones in Ireland have been unsuccessful due to opposition from locals, vested interests and politicians.

pumpkinsoup

djpbarry wrote: »

Based purely on electricity generation, possibly not. However, consider that each plant also doubles as a waste management facility and can charge a 'tipping fee' for raw materials, while it is also possible to sell the waste digestate as fertiliser.

New increased tariffs were announced yesterday for selling electricity from anaerobic digesters to the grid. This will make small-scale ones more viable. Generally these plants use CHP technology to generate electricity so if they've a market for heat as well they become more profitable.

Capt'n Midnight

zod wrote: »

In the paper, the research team calculates that "a hypothetical farm of 10,000 dairy cows" could power a 1 MW data center -- or on the order of 1,000 servers.
...
Seems to me that this is a no brainer for a dairy co-op in Ireland to get involved in ?

100W per server,

If you are talking data centres don't forget to double this to take into account the air conditioning too. 500 servers will fit in twelve 19 inch racks, less if you are using blades.

Macha

pumpkinsoup wrote: »

There are several anaerobic digesters around the country. (There's an older one at the main landfill site in Cork city). They're all quite small. Any proposals to build bigger ones in Ireland have been unsuccessful due to opposition from locals, vested interests and politicians.

As I understand it, a large part of the problem is waste regulations. Basically, there are strict laws on the transfer of slurry from one farm to another, which is basically what you need to happen if ADs are going to increase in size.

I'd also note that the process of AD does still leave an organic by-product that can be used to fertilize fields but the difference is that it soaks in far more quickly than regular slurry. This clearly would have a positive impact on the eutrophication of waterways, as usually happens when slurry is put on a field & it's washed into streams/rivers.

It really is a win-win technology. And given that agriculture is such a large part of our carbon emissions, relative to other EU countries, we really should be jumping on the bandwagon with this one.

pumpkinsoup

zod wrote: »

In the paper, the research team calculates that "a hypothetical farm of 10,000 dairy cows" could power a 1 MW data center -- or on the order of 1,000 servers.

Of course this is a US article. In this country most dairy cows are kept ouutside for most of the year so you'd need a lot more cows to power 1,000 servers. 100,000 dairy cows would be more realistic in Ireland considering how much time they spend indoors. Taking the cap'n's air conditioning requirements above into account it could be as much as 200,000 cows for the data centre.

Capt'n Midnight

lets not forget that a lot of "waste" biomass into energy projects have failed when a more profitable use for the biomass was found. when looking into them you should figure in a maximum price for the raw materials to see how exposed you are.

In the past you could charge people to take away whey / chicken entrails and bio ethanol / oil from them was profitable. Not so anymore.

At the other extreme palm oil is very cheap (environmentally a disaster due to deforestation) and fossil fuel is at high. In Germany subsidised grain was so cheap that people were using it wood pellet boilers. And has been pointed out you need to consider all the fuel inputs, here we feed cows on grass so not so bad.

In the US it takes a lot of oil to produce meat
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/end-cheap-oil/

In Germany it takes one litre of fossil fuel to produce one litre of bio-diesel , it's only economic because of subsidies and low tax on fuel used and low tax on bio fuel