Env-Science-Health
OBERLIN, OH – Darren Doherty | Permaculture | Biodigester | Resource Management
Darren Doherty | Permaculture | Jean Pain by The Erie WireSee Darren Doherty’s Website
Students constructing a Compost Shower inspired by Jean Pain at the Oberlin PDC. Photo: The Erie Wire
Darren Doherty finishing the Compost Shower. Photo: Scott Medwid
Jean Pain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jean Pain (1930 – 1981) was a French innovator who developed a compost based bioenergy system that produced 100% of his energy needs. He heated water to 60 degrees celsius at a rate of 4 litres a minute which he used for washing and heating. He also distilled enough methane to run an electricity generator, cooking elements, and power his truck. This method of creating usable energy from composting materials has come to be known as Jean Pain Composting, or the Jean Pain Method.
Life
He married Ida Pain (maiden name not yet known) and lived near Domaine des Templiers, on a 241-hectare timber tract backed on to the Alpes de Provence. He died in 1981 at the age of 51.
Composting
Pain’s compost power plant supplied 100 percent of Pain and his wife Ida’s rural household’s energy needs. A compost mound of tiny brushwood pieces (3 metres high and 6 across) was made of tree limbs and pulverized underbrush[1]. Pain spent considerable attention developing prototypes of machines required to macerate small tree trunks and limbs; one of these, a tractor-driven model, was awarded fourth prize in the 1978 Grenoble Agricultural Fair.[2] The 50 tonnes of compost was then mounded over a steel tank with a capacity of 4 cubic metres. This tank was 3/4 full of the same compost, which had first been steeped in water for 2 months. The hermetically sealed tank was connected by tubing to 24 truck tyre inner tubes, banked near by for the methane gas to collect. The gas was distilled by being washed through small stones in water and compressed. Pain used the gas for cooking and producing electricity. He also fueled a truck. Pain estimated that 10 kilos of brushwood would supply the gas equivalent of a litre of petrol.
It took about 90 days to produce 500 cubic metres of gas – enough to keep two ovens and three burner stoves going for a year. The methane-fueled combustion engine drove a generator that produced 100 watts of electricity every hour. This charged an accumulative battery which stored the current, providing all the light needed for the household.
Hot water was generated through 200 metres of pipe buried inside the compost mound. The pipe was wrapped around the methane generator with an inlet for cold water and an outlet for hot. The heat from the decomposing mass produced 4 litres per minute of hot water heated to 60 degrees Celsius – enough to satisfy the central heating, bathroom and kitchen requirements.
The compost heap continued fermenting for nearly 18 months, after which time the installation is dismantled and a new compost system is set up at once to assure a continuous supply of hot water.
Note: we apologize for the audio quality and will attempt to improve the recording in the archives. Also, during the recording a heavy storm passed over the building and produced the background sound similar to static, which we may not be able to remove.
Darren Doherty – Permaculture Speech @ Oberlin College by The Erie WireSee Darren Doherty’s Website
Click on Image for PDF slide show on Carbon Farming
Yeoman’s Design Threatened by Development
*More will be published about Keyline Design Methods in November.
- Darren Doherty explaining soil types at George Jones Farm in Oberlin, OH.
- Darren Doherty discussing the “Keyline” plowing method.
August/September Discussion
This recording took place after the Sandusky City Commission voted 5-2 to terminate their contract with Haag Environmental Company to help pay for John Hancock’s salary ($90,000), the new part-time city Director of Planning, Engineering & Development. It is meant to enlighten the perspective about the Brownfield Program within the city, and to encourage discussion about hazardous sites and environmental remediation so that solutions are developed with all available information.
What is CERCLA & Superfund?
What is RCRA?
City of Sandusky Brownfield Program 5 Year Strategic Plan. Assessment grant of $200,000 for Hazardous Substance Assessment on page 7.
Brownfield Committee discussion, between Dan Kaman and Bob Haag, about the Coal Tar Plume.
What are Brownfields? Why is a Brownfields Committee assembled for economic development?
Brownfield Presentation about the Coal Tar Plume.
The Coal Tar Plume VAP? What is a VAP?
Qualified Brownfields in the American Recovery Act.
Ruth Haag expresses many opinions and guidelines that are becoming “cutting edge” among the global and national perspectives in regard to the economy. For instance, Paul Krugman, the leading Op-Ed columnist on the economy for The New York Times, expressed similar sentiments in this weeks edition of the Times Magazine about the economy as a whole, a few weeks after our discussion with Ruth.
September 6, 2009
