Very Cool!

You Can Learn How to

• Make and Use Biogas,
• Save Money on Fuel, &
• Build and Sell Biogas Digesters

Know what you want already? Go right to it:

Need more info? Keep reading…

What is biogas?

Still a little vague about biogas? Need a bit of background? See “More about biogas”, below …

But perhaps the key point is if you want to move toward energy independence, and/or help others make the same journey, biogas ought to be on your list.

What are these workshops?

Would you like to know how to generate biogas? What produces it and how to use it? How to make really cheap, practical digesters? Attend a workshop!

Our two-day beginner’s workshop offers complete information about how to understand, successfully make and properly use biogas (first day), and how to make simple, effective, low–cost digesters (second day: hands-on!). You make it? You take it! Home! And it’s not just about small digesters, either: You will also learn a good deal about the tools and techniques required to build fairly large digesters. (For example, we are in the process of building a 3,000 gal— 10m³— digester which will accept all the food wastes from a local fast food outlet, using the tools and techniques taught in this workshop…)

Please note that a lot of the information provided in this class— such as plans for the digester kit— is not in The Complete Biogas Handbook. (Yes, yes, that of course means that it’s not complete, we know, but calling it The Nearly Almost Complete Biogas Handbook just didn’t seem like a great idea…)

Everyone who attends this workshop will leave with:

• a copy of The Complete Biogas Handbook
• a CD with a heap of wonderful information.

And depending on the workshop, everyone who attends (or everyone who chooses to purchase one) will leave with

• a small (~200 gal, ~0.75 m³) digester kit.^[*]

^[*] These digester kits need to be put in a greenhouse or someplace they can be kept warm. That’s why we call them ‘kits’— because they need additional parts and work to be complete digesters.

And by the way, a 200 gal digester, if kept warm and fed, has the potential to generate all the fuel necessary to cook all the meals for one or two people. If you pay very much for cooking fuel— do you use propane?— then you could begin saving money every month, as soon as your digester is up and bubbling…

Who will be presenting?

David House is the author of The Complete Biogas Handbook, and has lectured and taught a variety of subjects in more than 20 countries. (More information about David found here.)

Your workshop?

Do you want to have a workshop in your area? If you help organize one, you can attend for free, and will get other benefits as well. If you are interested in exploring this opportunity, or if you want to be contacted when new workshops are scheduled— perhaps one that is closer to where you live— please be sure to contact us. We will in touch…

Meanwhile… What’s already scheduled?

Where? When? How much?

The workshops mentioned below have been organized with the assistance of folks in the states, regions and countries where the workshops will be held:

So let’s try it again…

No workshops are scheduled at present, but…

Select a Workshop:
Year	Date	Where?
2012	Mar 31st	USA	New York (Ithaca)

	Workshop: March 31st – April 1st
		Ithaca, NY (East coast USA)
		Workshop address: Sponsored by: Greenstar Cooperative Market’s “The Space” 701 W. Buffalo Street Ithaca, NY 14850 (Store phone, for directions only: 607-273-9392, or visit the store’s web site.) Sam Bosco: (973) 951–0598 samuel.bosco@gmail.com
		Std Cost Description Registration or purchase $300 to $200 This is a two-day workshop. The first day is “All About Biogas…”, and the second day is “Building Biogas Digesters.” Come and ask all the questions you want. Cost? Sliding scale: $300–$200 for two days. The price includes a ~200 gal digester kit. Please note: For the workhshop at this venue, the amount you pay above $200 is based on the honor system. This workshop has been taken by people across the US and overseas, and most have paid $280 or more, and in addition, $30 or more for a digester kit, for a total cost above $300. Further, the fact is that putting on such events is expensive, as you will know if you have done it yourself. Without enough participants paying a suitable price, breakeven will be impossible. We mention this because at this venue, the workshop is being priced as affordably as possible, and we trust that people will pay according to their ability. And there’s more! Please contact Sam for information on scholarships and group discounts. Hero!: $300  Champion: $290  Excellent: $280  Exemplar: $270  Superstar: $260  Star: $250  Luminary: $240  Celeb: $230  Big gun: $215  Ace: $200

	Workshop: At an unknown date, but soon…
		Near you!
		Where you are, anywhere in the world if you arrange it…
		Cost? Negotiable.
		(Registration is not yet open for this workshop. But it could be! So contact us!)   (And how cool would it be to have a workshop and build a big digester, eh?)

More about biogas

Biogas is a naturally produced fuel, capable of powering stoves, lights, refrigerators, and anything that natural gas or propane can power. It is a gas composed almost entirely of CO₂ (carbon dioxide) and methane (CH₄) produced by a composting process, where air is excluded: anaerobic digestion.

Almost anything that was once alive can produce biogas, but plants provide a good deal more biogas than manure, pound for pound. (Want to know more? Well buy the book, hey….)

Briefly: Biogas? Well…

• It’s simple
• It can be really inexpensive to build a biogas “digester”
• And it offers far more energy per unit land than either ethanol or biodiesel
  (Honest! Proof? See the chart and read the links below.)

As you may know, a properly–built ordinary (aerobic) compost pile will get very hot (sometimes as much as 150°F – 70°C). So much kinetic energy (moving; hard to capture and use) is released from the breakdown of compost materials! A lot, yes, but more than twice the amount of energy in that kinetic heat is released as potential energy (stored; easy to capture and use) in the bonds of the methane molecule in biogas.

(Look at the chart at the right. You can see that 90% is more than twice as much as 40%.)

How much energy? Well, many studies show that when converting plant matter from a given unit of land into biogas vs. ethanol or biodiesel, biogas wins the contest big time, offering (for example) eight times the net energy of ethanol. (It offers lower greenhouse gas emissions than either ethanol or biodiesel as well.) For example:

(The above shows data from a 2009 study by Roger Samson and his colleagues.)