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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2
face=Arial>Dear all,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2
face=Arial>From a quick look at the literature out there the
problem seems to be that C botulinum spores are not being destroyed in
the AD process, but then I think it is also unlikely that a composting process
would destroy them either. Pasteurisation at 70 degrees does not remove them and
I believe compost temperatures do not exceed this, although the time of heating
is obviously longer.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2
face=Arial>Regarding the soil carbon, there is usually a good amount left in
most digestates. The AD process really only removes the more easily
degraded carbon which would otherwise be converted to CO2 and/or CH4 and
released to the atmosphere during either composting or direct spreading of the
waste.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=546411911-14022011><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I too am not a fan
of the use of maize/grass silage for biogas instead of fodder which is common in
parts of Europe and has been created by subsidies. Just remember that not
all of Europe does it this way.</FONT></SPAN><FONT size=2
face=verdana><BR><BR>Med venlig hilsen / Regards
<BR><FIRSTNAME><LASTNAME>Alastair James Ward<BR><BR></FONT><!--eMS7.0.4.D8M.7Y.2010--></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><BR>
<DIV dir=ltr lang=en-us class=OutlookMessageHeader align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> digestion-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:digestion-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Duncan
Martin<BR><B>Sent:</B> 14. februar 2011 12:11<BR><B>To:</B> For Discussion of
Anaerobic Digestion<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Digestion] Negative Biogas
Press<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Hi Alex
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>There's a lot to respond to here - but I suspect a lot of it is
nonsense. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>It's true that biogas production removes carbon that could enrich the soil.
However, many (most?) AD feedstocks are unsuitable for direct applcn to the soil
(for a range of reasons), whereas the digestate is beneficial. So without AD,
there could be no enrichment of the soil. With AD, there is
substantial enrichment, even if less than some theoretical (but
unattainable) maximum. </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>In the case of a feedstock that can be applied directly, of course, that
should be considered. Animals have been 'manuring' the soil since the dawn of
time, after all.......</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I>Clostridium spp</I> would not be unusual in AD. I have no idea whether
the botulinum toxin is produced in AD. However, I would be surprised if it is
stable once applied to the soil - and a 'rest' period should always be allowed
after spreading digestate. How long depends on the soil and the crop - longer
for salads than for root vegetables or cereals for example.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>So any problems of sick cattle might well be caused by poor management:
i.e. allowing grazing too soon after application. There is nothing unusual about
applying digestate to fodder fields: it has been done for almost 100 years and I
have never heard of this problem before.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I don't understand German, so I can't comment on the video clip - but I
wonder if this issue mainly relates to grass-fed AD. This is quite common in
some German-speaking countries, encouraged by generous prices for electricity
from biogas. I wonder if farmers under financial pressure have been tempted to
cut corners?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Duncan Martin PhD</DIV>
<DIV>Cloughjordan Ecovillage</DIV>
<DIV>Ireland</DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.thevillage.ie">www.thevillage.ie</A></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On 13 February 2011 23:37, Alexander Eaton <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:alex@sistemabiobolsa.com">alex@sistemabiobolsa.com</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>Hi All, <BR><BR>I have received this from a few people
now...it is clearly circulating widely. I have plenty of comments
regarding the soil aspects, and certainly some of the AD sludge contents from
industrial or black water plants is a bit beyond my expertise, but I would
certainly appreciate some comments from this group, especially any Germans
that can comment on the YouTube part. This guy clearly is now against biogas,
and it would make sense to have some good responses to this type of thing.
<BR><BR>Best<BR><BR><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Dear
Kamal,</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Dear
All,</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Besides the
clear and proven advantages of biogas there are at least two extremely severe
problems:</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Organic
matter that is converted into gas is no longer availabel to produce humus, so
there are reports from farmers that the soil is getting less and less
producticve. Rich soil may be far more important that the relatively litte
amount of gas. Composting expecially with earthworms and additon of some
charcoal dust (can easily be made from straw, rice husks instead of the
terrible burning) ideally plus stone dust can be far more beneficial with
rising productivity for food and more biomass and is simple, too. At TUHH we
are now working intensely of also composting urine and mixed excreta
stabilised by lactofermenters together with woody wastes to make more soil as
I want to work with ecolocical agriculture and not do industrial agriculture
with addion of fast fertiliser. Biogas can be a threat for long term food
security and you will have to pay for the gas with more and more fertiliser
demand, less water reproduction, flooding through compacting
soils.</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">In Germany
(see</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><FONT
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em" face=Arial> <A
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; COLOR: rgb(30,102,174)"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cNyyU3zcXY"
target=_blank>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cNyyU3zcXY</A> sorry in
German) </FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">(and probably
elsewhere) there are dramatic problems with the masses of heavily
subsidised biogas plants for food to energy producion where</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><I
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"><B style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em">Clostridium
botulinum </B></I></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">is growing
rapidly under anaerobic conditions producing the highly toxic substance, there
are hundreds of farms where all milk cows are dying and the farmers are
ruined, even they became ill sometimes. The reason are fodder fields that are
fertilised with the sludge from the biogas plants. The very dangerouos
botulinum toxin (misused by people who hate aging by paralysing nerves in the
face thus turning it into a mask, then called botox) is only showing effect
after many month so the effect is often not related to the cause.</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">I used to be
very positive towards biogas and have planned and built them, I will not do
this anymore except for some industrial wastewaters. Maybe also for sanitation
in areas where the soils are super humus rich already and botulism can be
avoided safely.</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Kind
regards</SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><BR
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em"></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia; FONT-SIZE: 16px">Ralf</SPAN><BR><BR>For
Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion <<A
href="mailto:digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org"
target=_blank>digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org</A>> <BR
clear=all><BR>-- <BR>Alexander Eaton<BR>Sistema
Biobolsa<BR>IRRI-Mexico<BR>RedBioLAC<BR><BR>Mex cel: (55) 11522786<BR>US cel:
970 275 4505<BR><BR><A href="mailto:alex@irrimexico.org"
target=_blank>alex@irrimexico.org</A><BR><A
href="mailto:alex@sistemabiobolsa.com"
target=_blank>alex@sistemabiobolsa.com</A><BR><BR><A
href="http://sistemabiobolsa.com" target=_blank>sistemabiobolsa.com</A><BR><A
href="http://www.irrimexico.org" target=_blank>www.irrimexico.org</A><BR><A
href="http://www.redbiolac.org"
target=_blank>www.redbiolac.org</A><BR><BR><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></DIV></BODY></HTML>