----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Rutan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 9:52 AM Subject: [thesupersurvivalpost2] Health Problems From Burning Manure
> Back in the 40's the Goverment in India commissioned a chap by the > name of Ram Bux Singh to develop and promulgate small scale methane > gas digesters for the rural countryside of India. Reason? India has > been de-forested by its huge population and there are few natural > resources to supply for common needs such as fuel for cooking. > > The impetus for this work was the fact that while Indians for the > most part do not eat meat, yet they have a lot of sacred cows walking > around leaving cow chips everywhere. So for lack of anything else, > people would gather these cow chips and burn them for fuel. There > were so many instances of people going blind from the fumes rising > from burning manure, the push was on to use this "natural resource," > bovine manure and convert it into a form of fuel which does not pose > a health risk. > > Back in the 60's when John Schuttleworth was still the owner as well > as the founder of the Mother Earth News, John brought Ram Bux Singh > to the US and to his folk's farm in Indiana to direct the building of > a methane gas digester on the Shuttleworth farm. All of this was > documented in a book published by Mother Earth News. > > As an aside, pioneers crossing the grasslands of the US 150 years ago > in covered wagons on their trek west were sometimes at a loss for > fuel on the open prairies. But there were buffalo chips to gather for > cooking fuel. Some of those folks developed visual problems much like > the people in India and didn't make the connection to burning raw > manure as the cause. > > Ram Bux Singh proved that small scale methane generators work. I > picked up on this work back in the '60's while teaching high school > in Montana. Many of us were attempting to discourage the strip mining > of coal which cuts into the acqifer and destroys the ground water > table. > > Converting animals manure much as human manure has been done in > sewage plants for over 100 years into useable fuel and enhanced > fertilizer seemed a natural. And so it has been. > > I am much opposed to animal confinement operations for a variety of > reasons. However, even animals that free range often deposit a > considerable amount of manure in one place. Chickens, for instance, > drop much of their manure under their roosts at night. > > To maintain that a digester has to be big in order to work is much > like saying that the only airplanes that will fly are big ones like > the Boeing 747. Piper Cubs and Cessnas simply will not work. > > All of this is detailed at my website: > > http://www.methane-gas.com > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make Money Online Auctions! Make $500.00 or We Will Give You Thirty Dollars for Trying! http://us.click.yahoo.com/yMx78A/fNtFAA/i5gGAA/9bTolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
