Two old ideas that prove their worth today

Monday, March 5, 2012

It's many years since electric cars and anaerobic digesters on farms were first tried out. But they are back in vogue once more

by RALPH WINFIELD


Some of us who have been around for a long time or have done significant literature reviews know that a few reportedly new ideas are not new at all. In some cases, they are just being revived because the time is right.

I have two examples that I would like you to ponder. One is less than 40 years old, the other over 100 years old. Let us look at the more recent one first.

Anaerobic digesters on farms. In the late 1970s and early '80s the governments of Ontario and Canada partially funded a number of anaerobic digesters on Canadian livestock farms.

The primary objectives were to control odour and produce power as electricity or heat to make the installations economically viable.

By 1985, both funding groups were having some difficulty justifying the investments because the end results were not consistent. Ralph G. Winfield & Assoc. were hired by both groups to do an overview to determine what was right and what went wrong. With the assistance of Andy Watson, a former agricultural representative and an Ontario Agriculture College livestock graduate as my associate, we literally hit the road. We visited many digester locations in Ontario and Quebec as well as some in the northeastern United States not connected with the Canadian projects.

What did we learn? All the digesters were meeting the primary objective of controlling odours and some were operated solely for that purpose. The biogas was just flared because it was not useable, especially on beef feedlots.

Most installations had installed engine-generator sets to produce electrical energy and provide engine heat to maintain digester temperature. Many of those installations initially performed well, but there was a major glitch. To be efficient the gen sets had to run continuously.

The problem was that the Canadian utilities did not want the power and begrudgingly offered about one cent per kilowatt hour for feed-in power. This amount would not cover the operating cost, the maintenance being higher than desired because the biogas was not scrubbed and only contained 60-66 per cent methane.

The result was that, at many installations, efforts were made to store the biogas to provide electrical energy as and when needed on the farm. Biogas is virtually incompressible and when stored in a large expandable bladder, it is an accident waiting to happen.

The only viable system was the one operated on the Mason-Dixon Farms at Gettysburg, Pa. With over 900 cows in the milking string, they were milking 20 hours per day, processing the milk and, with four hours of clean-up time, were able to use all of the electrical energy effectively and efficiently.

In addition, one family member was a true Mr. Fix-it for all of the mechanical/electrical systems on the farm. This was in direct contrast to the then-smaller dairy farms in Canada, where the owner/manager tried to cover all the bases.

Our 18 recommendations are as applicable today as they were in 1986 when the report was published. Dairy farm size has increased significantly, gone are most of the 40-cow dairy herds and the price paid for electrical energy fed into the grid has increased. In other words, the time for this has come and so has the updated European technology for digester feeding and biogas scrubbing.

Electric cars. In 1902, industrialist H. Ward Leonard made a presentation to the Long Island Automobile Club on "What A Light Touring Car Should Be."

His notes for the presentation cover the three propulsion choices of the time: gasoline, electricity and steam. Do keep in mind that the Ward Leonard Co. of Bronxville, NY, was building a two-cylinder gasoline car and an electric car under the company name from 1901 to 1903.

His evaluation points in order of relative importance were: Safety, Reliability, Speed, Depreciation, Economy, Hill Climbing, Appearance, First Cost, Noise and Smell.

Would it surprise you to know that the electric car got first place in Appearance as well as Noise and Smell?

With battery technology greatly improved over 110 years, no wonder that we are again looking at electric or hybrid cars in 2012. BF

Agricultural engineer Ralph Winfield farms at Belmont in Elgin County.