Harnessing ones own gas

[r.p.mcmurphy]

Hehe! Seriously though, with the continuing price rises by BG and others, is it a diy possibility to produce and store gas produced from your households sewerage?

cheers

steve

[Tim Morley]

This is illegal; once your sewage has entered the fall pipe it is deemed to be the property of your local water authority. They have the legal right to your waste, and therefore you are not allowed to do anything with it at all.

HTH

[r.p.mcmurphy]

ok, what about growing my own rapeseed oil for use in domestic heating and for use in my car?

steve

[Chris Bacon]

Intercept it before it gets there, then! Not likely to get much output, though. If you want to harness gas, you could start with Dr. Drivel and Mary Fisher.

That's fine, but you'd need to be a Good Boy and Tell Customs And Excise So that They could Levvy The Tax (innocence: Yes, I only produced 500 litres... What! 5,000!!! Where did you get *that* idea from! :) ).

[Ali Mac]

I saw aTop Gear a couple of years ago when they were talking about recycling vegetable oil from chip shops for use as a diesel substitute. You can do anything like this, but apparently you have to pay fuel duty. Still a lot cheaper than buying it though. Now how many acres of rape would you need to run a family car for a year.....?

Alistair

[John Rumm]

IIRC one of the artichoke family is one of the best things to grow for production of bio diesel - you can get quite significant yields per acre.

Not sure what the taxation issues would be on using it for house heating though. You can grow stuff and burn it for heating without any liability, so it seems reasonable that you ought to be able to introduce a refining process in there ;-)

[S Viemeister]

This isn't likely to apply to those of us who use septic systems!

Sheila

[Mark]

I let storage space to a local breakdown recovery firm who also attend to people who put petrol in diesel cars and vice versa. This contaminated fuel has had its duty paid and would cost £40 x 25Lt for them to dispose of. So I have recently acquired a Rolls-Royce K60 multi fuel engine which I hope to hang a Huge generator on. Free electricity/Heat for a few years. :-)

-

[Mr Fizzion]

What about Harry Ramsden's who use beef dripping? Yum!!

Can you run a car on animal fat? When you think about it, converting grass into fuel through cows is quite an interesting idea.

Mr F.

[Paul Andrews]

Just as long as I don't live next door. Bit noisy for the neighbours..

[Ian Stirling]

You can, you need to process it first. google foolproof biodiesel process

[dingbat]

(Sadly) a piece-of-crap engine. A B40 would have been a lot better. Even then almost anything commercial is a better bet than an ex-mil Rolls. At least it wasn't the infernal Leyland lump out of the Chieftain.

If you want a methane powered generator, then buy something modern and small. Just getting the sizing right is a big help and any Honka genny dealer should sell off-the-shelf propane kits that do most of the work for you. Some of the Stalwart refurb people are doing gas conversions for the B series lumpen and a K series is much the same kit.

If you're insistent on doing it with big old iron, then '50s petrol truck engines are worth a look (mine was an Austin). But one of the best engines around for cow-power is a straight-six Jag (and the mil-version is ready-to-roll, if a little hard to find).

I suggest uk.rec.engines.stationary for discussion of these topics. Lots of genny people in there.

[AJH]

Is it?

Half a stalwart engine out of a champ, part of a rush for common components that was beaten by stock engines from Rover.

Won't run on diesel either.

I have a couple of acquaintances who run ex mod vehicles on petrol/diesel mixes recovered by breakdown crews, one even attempted to circumnavigate the isle of white with some. The K60 6 cylinder 12 piston unit powered this.

AJH

[Andy Dingley]

The Stolly is quite a bit different, as it's a laid-down block. That "B series" concept never worked really much more than commonality of blocks and reciprocating parts, and causing the B40 engine to be vastly overweight for what it was capable of.

They will, or at least did, but I'm not sure how common the bits were. There were even diesel-fuelled Meteors (the land Merlin)

[Rick]

That may be the case, but some of us have "private sewage", so it remains our property / problem.

I am somewhat interested to see answers to the orignal question.

Rick

[Rick]

You can actually buy chip shop oil for use in your car, with the road fund duty paid. Its about the same price as proper diesel, and you have to buy 1000 litre tanks.

Rick

[Bob Mannix]

Why would you wish to, unless it was significantly cheaper?

Bob Mannix

[Tony Bryer]

It's cheaper if it's reused oil - as viewers of yesterday's Working Lunch will know:

[Rick]

Thats why I don't use it. At 10p a litre cheeper, I would.

Rick

[Michael Mcneil]

But you would still have the bulk of the crop for fodder. The actual seed is only a small part of the plant. And it does grow quickly I believe.