<div>Dear Dr. Martin,</div>
<div>I have just returned from a city called Wardha, where I attended a workshop arranged jointly by the Research Councils of UK and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. About 20 scientists each from UK and India were invited to this meeting.</div>
<div>In the course of field visits organised during the workshop, Dr. Soham Pandya, The Director of Centre of Science for Villages, an NGO in Wardha, showed us an amazing biogas plant on his campus. This biogas plant accepts about 1000 kg cattle dung as a one-time load and produces daily about 3 cubic meters of biogas, continuously over a period of about 180 days. This is not the only biogas plant constructed by him. Using funds from the Department of Science and Technology, He has constructed a similar biogas plant in another place called Hingoli, where a one-time load of 1000 kg dung yields biogas continuously for 6 months, to run an electricity generator for daily 3 to 4 hours, to provide electric lighting to all the houses in the village. Officials of the Department of Science and Technology vouched for the veracity of these claims. According to text book knowledge, 1000 kg dung should have produced about 30,000 litres (or 30 cubic meters) biogas. But this particular biogas plant produces 540 cubic meters of it.</div>
<div>Neither Dr. Pandya nor any other scientist could give a scientific explanation to this phenomenally high yield of biogas. Dung of Indian cattle consists mainly of lignin (from the veins and midribs of the grass and leaves that they feed on) and micro-organisms. One has to assume in this case, that there are microbes in the dung that feed on the lignin and that the methanogens digested the lignin eating microbes.</div>
<div>Yours</div>
<div>A.D.Karve<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Duncan Martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:duncanjmartin@gmail.com">duncanjmartin@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">Perhaps Dr Karve & I should agree to disagree? <br><br>To argue that dung is not food for the methanogens because they need help to digest it is really a semantic quibble. It misses the point I was responding to - that the digestion process is not <i>completed </i>by the act of defaecation, it is merely <i>terminated</i> for the owner of the gut in question.<br>
<br>I have never seen any serious literature suggesting that microbes are altruistic. However, the principles of commensalism are well established and I see no basis for dismissing them. Moreover, the complex web of metabolic interactions in AD has been extensively researched and is pretty well understood - though I am sure there is more to discover.<br>
<br>Nor have I seen any literature whatsoever suggesting that the methanogens consume other microorganisms. I would be intrigued to see a proposed mechanism.<br><br>To dismiss all the textbooks as wrong (see previous postings) is unhelpful, at best. Who could only say that unless he had read every one of them? Of course, there are mistakes - even in the best books - if only because science moves on, so any book becomes outdated. And there are indeed some layman's guides to AD that include some odd ideas - but who would take them as serious guides to the science? <br>
<br>When we find such errors, let us use this forum to report them - giving exact references. But lets not confuse newcomers to the field by dismissing every other source of information as rubbish.<br><br>Finally, let us accept that each of us is entitled to his opinion - but lets reserve this forum for the fruits of practical experience and evidence-based information. <br>
<br>I suggest we draw a line under the present debate.<br><br>Duncan Martin, PhD, MCIWM, MIChemE, MIEI<br>Cloughjordan Ecovillage<br>Ireland<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 17 October 2010 16:39, Anand Karve <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adkarve@gmail.com" target="_blank">adkarve@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div>Dear Duncan,</div>
<div>I dont believe in the theory of a chain of micro-organisms, with one species converting the cellulose into glucose, another converting the glucose into an organic acid (e.g. citric acid), still another converting the organic acid into acetic acid and ultimately the acetic acid being converted by the methanogenic organisms into carbon dioxide and methane. If this were true, one would have by now isolated the organism that converted cellulose into glucose and used the glucose to produce alcohol. Cellulose is the most ubiquitously found organic compount in the world and with this simple process, one would have produced unlimited quantity of liquid fuel. But even today, the conversion of cellulose into glucose is achieved in any industrial process by using a cellulolytic enzyme extracted from a cellulolytic organism. The reason for this is, that the glucose converted by the organism from cellulose is consumed by the same organism. And once it is consumed by an organism, it is converted into its cell all the way down to carbon dioxide. The micro-organisms in the gut of an animal cannot be expected to be so altruistic as to predigest the food and suply it to the methanogens. I feel that the methanogenic organisms consume the fellow micro-organisms in the gut of animals and digest them to produce methane and carbon dioxide. Such dog-eat-dog reactions occur also in the soil supplied with organic matter.</div>
<div> In any case, once it is accepted that the methanogenic organisms do not digest the dung directly and that they need the help of other organisms to digest it, one cannot accept that dung is the food of the methanogens. It is like saying that manure applied to a field is human food, because through a number of biological processes it ultimately ends up into products, which the humans eat.</div>
<div>Yours</div>
<div>A.D.Karve <br></div>
<div>
<div></div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Duncan Martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:duncanjmartin@gmail.com" target="_blank">duncanjmartin@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote"><br>Yes, the gut methanogens do, in a sense, eat what the animal eats. However, it would be more accurate to say that their diet is derived from what the animal eats. The methanogens in the gut of a cow are surrounded by celluose and other biopolymers but they cannot digest them. They live on the waste products of other microbial processes. The web of metabolic interactions is well known. <br>
<br>Where I would "hoot out" Dr Karve is his belief that dung cannot serve as food for the methanogens because they are "thrown out" of the body along with the dung. I don't understand the logic here.<br>
<br><br></blockquote></div></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Digestion mailing list<br><br>to Send a Message to the list, use the email address<br><a href="mailto:Digestion@bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">Digestion@bioenergylists.org</a><br>
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<br>for more information about digestion, see<br>Beginner's Guide to Biogas<br><a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/" target="_blank">http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/</a><br>and the Biogas Wiki <a href="http://biogas.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">http://biogas.wikispaces.com/</a><br>
<br><br></blockquote></div><br>
<div style="DISPLAY: inline"></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Digestion mailing list<br><br>to Send a Message to the list, use the email address<br><a href="mailto:Digestion@bioenergylists.org">Digestion@bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page<br><a href="http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>for more information about digestion, see<br>Beginner's Guide to Biogas<br><a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/" target="_blank">http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/</a><br>and the Biogas Wiki <a href="http://biogas.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">http://biogas.wikispaces.com/</a><br>
<br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>***<br>Dr. A.D. Karve<br>President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)<br><br>*Please change my email address in your records to: <a href="mailto:adkarve@gmail.com">adkarve@gmail.com</a> *<br>
<br><br><br>