Can animal (including human) manure be used as fuel?

[corndog-44]

The other day, I was reminded of the fact that many cultures use dried cow, yak and buffalo manure as fuel. I was wondering: Can the feces of other species (including humans) be used for fuel as well? The heating bills are going to start piling up as winter comes, and I thought a bit of recycling might be in order. :(

[canid]

you pretty much want to stick to the dung of grazing ruminants. this burns well [efficiently] because it is predominantly cellulose and also does not smell up the entire range/farm/forest horribly

for the self sufficienty minded, there are many fine articles on bio-gas production, a sort of low grade natural gass from anaerobic organic waste composting which is mostly methane.

[Jay]

Canid is right. Stick to the grazing animals. I once put dried leopard poop in the fire and became very unpopular very quickly. Smelled mostly of buring hair.

[canid]

yeah, i'd imagine leopard dung is half fur.

[FVR]

What's this some kind of jenkem post?

[canid]

no thank you

[FVR]

Just breath deep now.LOL.

If you don't know what it is, google it. I will post no more on this subject. Oh yeh, I brought it up. OOOOPppppss or should I say Poooooooppppssss.

[canid]

yeah, there's sort of a difference between the controlled composting of wastes for fuel-gas production and the use of sewer gas as a recreational drug by huffing human excrement.

[wareagle69]

gosh your heating bills are really starting to "pile" up eh

[nell67]

gosh your heating bills are really starting to "pile" up eh
ewww,EEWWW,this whole thread just stinks

[Rick]

Okay. Corndog was serious. You can extract both methane and hydrogen from human excrement to run power generators. It's a great way to provide electricity for your little farm especially if you have cows. Cows emit 400 eructations per day (that's burps to you and me). And that's 400 burps (excuse me) per day times a whopping 1.2 billion of the mooing little cretins. The way I see it, the ice caps are melting because of vegetarians. They won't eat meat so all those cows are standing around doing what? Eructating! That's right. So, either we start eating more cows or we add vegetarians to our diet. Just some misguided thoughts filtered through my Jack Daniels.

[nell67]

Okay. Corndog was serious. You can extract both methane and hydrogen from human excrement to run power generators. It's a great way to provide electricity for your little farm especially if you have cows. Cows emit 400 eructations per day (that's burps to you and me). And that's 400 burps (excuse me) per day times a whopping 1.2 billion of the mooing little cretins. The way I see it, the ice caps are melting because of vegetarians. They won't eat meat so all those cows are standing around doing what? Eructating! That's right. So, either we start eating more cows or we add vegetarians to our diet. Just some misguided thoughts filtered through my Jack Daniels.
Jack Daniels eh Rick? Not fair using artificial intelligence....

[wareagle69]

hang on to that though rick. let me go get the mrs so you can splain it to here proper

[Nativedude]

For straight bun fuel you need the "dried" dung from herbivores (plant eating animals).

Dung with processed materials in them, i.e; human, will not work for straight burning.

Dry cow, horse, buffalo, deer, elk, caribou, are some of the best.

[Assassin Pilot]

I agree that we should start eating those cows more. Soon we will be able to make them extinct! Think of all the good we will be doing to the earth by removing all of that methane....

[Rick]

Removing methane?! Then what will frat boys have to light on drunk night?

[Assassin Pilot]

noooo, there will still b methane just not in the atmosphere. it is a greenhouse gas so we dont want it

cows = lots of methane
no cows = not lots of methane

as simple as that

[nell67]

Then you would have to rid the world of all the elk,caribuo,moose,sheep,goats,human,ya know any critter that expels gas through burping or any other means,why settle for just getting rid of the cows?

If you remove all the methane from the atmosphere,then what? is there not a delicate balance in nature that requires methane,and if you remove the methane from that balance whats going to happen then?

[Rick]

See how it works, AP? We don't cut you with a knife, we hack you with a machete.:D

[Stealth]

heres an article where a zoo is attempting to use elephant manure for fuel http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/05/zoo_poo_power_e_1.php

[Rick]

Thanks, stealth. Here's a bunch of uses including human:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/behold_the_powe.php

[canid]

bad zoo! elehant fuel is a valuable substrate for synthetic mushroom composts. i need that zoo-doo!

[Beo]

Play in your poop if'n ya wanna, i'll stick with my timber. Although the stool from grazing animals such as cow, deer, elk, moose, have been used extensively in the past. It works great in a pinch.

[Rick]

You pinch the stuff? I do hope you wear gloves. PeeU!

[Nativedude]

". . .works great in a pinch."

D'oh. . .should have seen that coming. . .a clean breaker?! :rolleyes: . . .LOL! :D

[Beo]

"PINCH" off a loaf and lite that!!! :D

[Kemperor]

I've found that chicken poop works pretty well. I'm going to have to go with Beowulf on this one, though, and stick with wood.

As far as global warming goes, quite a bit of greenhouse gases are recycled by plant life. The main reason for global warming is polar shift. I mean, yes, there still is an excess of greenhouse gases, but they aren't the major problem. The Earth is doing this on its own. The Magnetic poles are shifting, as is the earths position in space, giving more evenly spread sunlight to the Arctic and Antarctic regions as the shift progresses and the tilt of the earth straightens out. You have major earthquakes, such as the tsunami starter, and that speeds up the process as well. Add in all of the earthquakes of great magnitude that attribute to this, then add the greenhouse gases. Plus, volcanoes emit far more greenhouse gases than all of us, and all cows, combined. Global warming is very vastly multi faceted. We're just slightly speeding up the process. Add polar shift plus the acceleration due to earthquake plus volcanic emission plus swamp gases and other natural gas emissions plus industrial emissions plus fire emissions from just burning stuff and wildfires etc, plus farting, burping, and breathing plus the gases released from bacterial induced decay and that's what equals global warming. There's still a few additions that I'm missing too.

[Rick]

Okay. Quote your sources on the polar shift thingy. I have to read to learn. I told my wife I've been walking downhill for some time and she won't believe me.

[Kemperor]

When one goes to resources, remember that scientists are extremely similar to politicians. They don't care if the evidence is there, they're going to support their claims regardless, only using their evidence. The wiki is solely about Pole Shift and theories about the results of a pole shift, the second link goes into detail about what causes pole shift, an the third is from NASA talking about the ice at the poles melting and global warming in general. NASA claims that man is the reason for todays global warming, but if you talk to an archaeologist you'll find that the earth has series upon series of global warmings followed by Ice ages, and we're about due for a global warming anyway. After that, the reverse of what's happening now will occur. Anyone up for vacationing in Greenland in a few years? I look to what's happened in the past, and that's what I see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_shift_theory

http://es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html

I'll have more resources tomorrow regarding volcanic emissions, tsunamis, probably the whole shebang. This will provide you plenty of reading for now. We might even have to end up moving this to the general forum, so that we can get this topic back to shooting the $h!t.

[Rick]

I'm aware that pole shift has occurred in the distant past and it is something that could occur in the future but it isn't a quick process. It takes tens of thousands of years to complete (as least that's the current thinking). I was really interested in your comment that the magnetic poles are shifting. This is certainly true from a solar perspective and occurs quit regularly but I'm not aware of any ongoing change here on earth. I would be interested in reading any literature on that.

So far as we know, no extinctions have been caused by polar shift so I haven't seen any decent projections on what might be expected. One can theorize any number of things but if you know of some writings by NASA or Goddard or similar, I'd be interested.

[Beo]

Global warming, polar shifts, greenhouse effects, blah blah blah I'll deal with it when i gotta survive :Djk real good posts from all and very informative. I believe this is a much looked over topic in most households. I'm actually learning alot about it here so thanks for the information everyone.

[Kemperor]

Not a problem Beowulf.

[Beo]

There was a show on NatGeo this weekend titled Global Warming. Did anyone see it? I recorded ot DVR so I'm watching it tonight. Also a show on there called Life Without Us, this show tells of different disasters from natural to manmade and how human life expires a little at a time and then what happens when humans are gone.

[Rick]

I did see the Life Without Us last week. Good show. Interesting take on power generation. If that show is right, Hoover Dam area is going to be a sanctuary.

[Beo]

Great show.

[corndog-44]

Here's a site http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/hooker87.html of a man that uses manure for fuel. He not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk.

[trax]

Here's a site http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/hooker87.html of a man that uses manure for fuel. He not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk.

..and drops the plop?