Power from poop progresses

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begreen

Mooderator
Staff member
Nov 18, 2005
104,429
South Puget Sound, WA
Thanks BG, that was a good read. Nice too see what those bright young minds that see problems differently are capable of. This could be a big one for countries that just cant afford to treat their waste, gives them a money making alternative albeit slowly to just dumping the stuff in the nearest waterway.
 
haha, my thoughts exactly............

TS
 
Tie this idea in with the Gates Foundation's quest to reinvent the toilet and you've made a bid step toward the goal of revolutionizing the way we approach human wastes on a global scale.....Very cool and thanks for sharing.
 
I certainly hope so. It's about time we got our chit together. Literally!
 
They need to build the first one at a brewery. Those places produce tons of effluent rich with the stuff they need in it.

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Search for "cowpower" sometimes. One cow produces manure to run a 100 watt light bulb continuously.
 
Search for "cowpower" sometimes. One cow produces manure to run a 100 watt light bulb continuously.
A 1 watt LED bulb is very bright, im sure you could light up the whole barn with 100 of them. So 1 cow could light up the whole barn.
 
When I discuss cowpower I usually warn the folks that they will probably never forget the triva that a cow puts out 100 watts on a continuous basis. I just tell them to remember the picture of a cow with a 100 watt bulb sticking out of its posterior. By the way I think a pig is a 40 watt light bulb. The nice part about cowpower and other energy methods is it grabs the methane out of the manure which is a big global warming issue.
 
Actually a cow body generates a fair amount of heat also. Are the btus/hr being accounted for in the power equation?
 
When I discuss cowpower I usually warn the folks that they will probably never forget the triva that a cow puts out 100 watts on a continuous basis. I just tell them to remember the picture of a cow with a 100 watt bulb sticking out of its posterior. By the way I think a pig is a 40 watt light bulb
So how many watts does a human produce? Guess it depends on the weight. Im sure a 500 Lb er produces more methane than a 100Lb er.
 
Depends what they eat. My son doesn't weigh much, but given beer and nachos with beans he might match a pig for an hour or two.
 
How many humans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
 
How many humans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
2. But getting them in there is a b*tch!
 
LOL Or a really big light bulb.
 
Looks like I was way off. A 1500 lb. strong milk producing cow can produce up to 11,137 watts per hour! Overheating in a crowded barn is a serious concern for farmers. Now not all of the cows are going to weigh as much or produce as much milk or heat. So let's say at 100,000 btus per day/cow a hundred cows would be produce a whopping 10,000,000 btus per day or 416, 667 btus/hr or 122,113 watts per hour in body heat alone ;ex

http://www.farmanddairy.com/columns/heat-stress-your-best-cows-are-the-ones-at-risk/24896.html
 
Interesting to note the effect of milk production there - the moving from 120lbs/day to 40 lbs/day reduces heat production from 6,300 BTU/hr to 3,300 BTU/hr. Hence, a resting cow not producing any milk will produce about 1,800 BTU/hr (530 Watts) for a 1,500 lb cow. Assuming a human is about 200 lbs, that scales to 70 Watts - although humans being smaller will lose heat faster in the same climate and hence need a slightly faster metabolism.

Oh, and begreen, you might want to check your maths - I make the given 6,300 BTU/hr for a high-producing cow to be ~1800W so I'm struggling to see how you got six times this.
 
You're right! Watts up with that? I was way off. That should be 1846 watts/cow/hr or 184,600 watts/hr for the whole barn full if they were producing 120lb/day.
 
Who needs wood stoves just keep a few cows in the house for heat!!!!!!!!!!
 
We stayed in an old farmhouse in France where the lower floor was where the livestock used to be kept with the living space on the next floor. This is a common rural design around the world and still used in Tibet for example.
 
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