This is an unusual story out of the UK about Henry Hobhouse, an apple farmer who has converted his apple crop to a souce of fuel. Hobhouse uses tanks and enzymes to decompose half of his annual crop, from which he harvests methane gas to power his car and generate electricity for his home. The story was also picked up on Treehugger, unfortunately both stories are a little short on details about the process that Hobhouse employs.

The stories did remind me of another innovative source for methane energy,  landfills of course!  A few years ago I had a chance to visit the Energy XChange, a really unique landfill methane harvesting scheme in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The methane powers on-site artist’s studios, including gas fired kilns for ceramics as well as green houses and even a commercial fish farming operation.

The success of the XChange seems to be catching on, as another nearby landfill powered operation, Green Energy Park, is now in service as well. The energy park’s beneficiaries apparently include a blacksmith’s shop and a biodiesel manufacturing center. The two operations were recently featured in an article in the Smoky Mountain News.

 

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