Home Cookin’ With Homemade Biogas Energy

By Stephen Hren
Published on March 1, 2013
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Photo ©2013 Isaac Marquez, marquezarts@gmail.com
Feed the Biogas Digester: Biodigesters trap the methane gas from decomposing organic waste, such as manure and table scraps, and use it for producing electricity or cooking fuel. Methane is composed of carbon and hydrogen — CH4. It has an octane rating of 110 and produces about 1,000 Btu of heat per cubic foot of gas.

Homemade biogas in a DIY biodigester uses food scraps to create a cooking fuel that’s about 2/3 methane and 1/3 carbon dioxide–very similar to natural gas.

About five years ago, writer and renewable energy aficionado Warren Weismann was researching ancient Greece for his novel when he stumbled across information that the Greeks had built anaerobic digesters to produce methane. He then read about similar archaeological evidence in ancient Syria and China. But it was the modern biogas boom in China that got him most excited and distracted him from his writing career: Tens of millions of home-scale biodigesters have been built in China over the last century, with the pace of construction still accelerating. Warren wanted one for himself.

After a few years of further research, including conversations with colleagues in India and Nepal, where small-scale biogas production is prevalent, Warren modified traditional designs to create a plan for his own 700-gallon biodigester. He was living at Maitreya Ecovillage, a threeblock community and green-building-oriented neighborhood near downtown Eugene, Oregon. After building his first biodigester last year, he’s become increasingly excited about the possibilities for home-scale biogas, and has established Hestia Home Biogas to build biodigesters locally and consult on biodigesters across the globe.

Homemade Biogas Back from Obscurity

Biogas has been used for lighting for at least a century, and possibly millennia. But it was mostly abandoned in the United States after cheap and abundant fossil fuel was harnessed in the early 20th century. Home-scale biodigesters have remained on the sidelines in the developed world, but are poised for a comeback as interest in a replacement fuel increases.

There are good reasons to consider building biodigesters for a community, small farm, or even home. Biodigesters yield two products that are extremely useful for the home and garden–high-nitrogen compost and flammable gas.

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