Re: DIG-L: a note on "philosophical" vs. "technical"discussions

[doelle <doelle@ozemail.com.au>]

Many thanks Brian,

We here in Australia have a combination of anaerobic digestion and aerobic treatment. First you have the anaerobic part and then you follow with a trickling aerobic filter to treat the waste. In this case you flare the methane. In many instances I agree, only aerobic treatment is the one.

I have also seen in Canada treatment plants, who use the methane produced from the anaerobic digestion to run the whole plant including the aerobic section. This was a very modern one. Surprisingly I was told, that the reuse of biogas minimises interruption of the plant by striking workers !?!?

Horst
At 08:36  20/02/00 -0500, you wrote:
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>doelle wrote:
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>> A very quick initial note to your questions.
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>> Every developed country, whether Europe or USA has anaerobic digesters producing biogas in all towns and cities in form of sewerage plants. The difference is, we in the developed world burn the gas as a flare, whereas the developing world shows us how to make use of the gas.
>> Not true ?
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>No, not true.  In the US, most sewage plants that I have seen are of the AEROBIC variety.  Only recently have some been adding anaerobic digesters.  And the ones that add the anaerobic process still process most of their wastewater through the aerobic side of the house.  In
>fact, the plant that I visited last week either flares their gas or uses it to run air pumps for the aerobic process!  Only a small fraction of what they process goes through the anaerobic digesters.
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>-brian
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Horst W.Doelle, D.Sc., D.Sc. [h.c.]
Chairman, IOBB
Director, MIRCEN-Biotechnology
FAX: +617-38783230
Email: doelle@ozemail.com.au DIGESTION List Sponsors, Archive and Information http://www.crest.org/renewables/digestion-list-archive http://www.crest.org/renewables/biomass-info/ Beginners Tour of Biogas http://WWW.roseworthy.adelaide.edu.au/~pharris/biogas/beginners