Biogas

What is biogas anyway?

You had to ask!  

Well, yes it is. As Culhane's Biogas song goes, "It's the same gas as the gas we pass!".

Seriously though, biogas is a mixture of methane (CH4) 60 to 70%, carbon dioxide (CO2) 30 to 40% and sniffable amounts of H2S (that makes it safe because you know if there is a leak, right?).  It can be dropped in in place of so called "natural gas" but has less heat content per unit volume.  But that doesn't make much of a difference in any practical sense for the home user since it is free (once you have paid for the digester).

Can I buy a home biogas system ready made or do I have to build it myself?

Since summer of 2014 several startup companies around the world are beginning to offer home biogas systems for sale.  This of course has been the case for a decade or more in China and India, but the rest of the world is starting to catch up.  If you are in Kenya check out Flexi-biogas systems from Simply Logic.  If you are in the Middle East check out the Teva Gas system from Eco-gas Israel and the modified ARTI systems from "

Does it smell?

Funny you should say that.  I mean really funny, as in it makes me laugh.  I used to think biogas would have to be stinky too, because it was my job as a kid to take out the garbage and it made me want to vomit.  Bleccccchh!  Now I recoil when I am in households that still throw their food scraps away, with all the odors and the inevitable flies, and long to be home or in a sensible place where all the food waste is sent to a biogas system.

Why is a biogas system cleaner?

Got any carrots?

Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids AND biodigesters.  In fact, breakfast cereals are BETTER suited for biodigesters than human beings. Just make sure the tank doesn't go acid. Don't overfeed cereals... or carrots for that matter. Overloading carbs and fats makes things go sour.

But is it SAFE?

No one in our world wide network has ever reported any life threatening accidents with home scale biogas.  The tanks we work with can't explode if that is what you are thinking, because they are filled with water. Water and dung. They store very little gas, and it isn't under any particular pressure.

Solar CITIES demonstrated the safety of INDOOR biogas in an unventilated room at Mercy College for over a year.

Is it safe?

It's gas. Natural gas.  Truly natural gas.  Not the fossil fuel that is named to fool us.  It doesn't contribute to global warming, if that's what you are worried about.  But it is gas.  It is flammable.  It burns. You can hurt yourself, sure.  Singe your eyebrows, that kind of thing.  Treat it the way you would treat the gas from any gas oven.