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Europe

Global Ecovillage Network’s First Puxin Biodigester

Suderbyne Ecovillage creates Europe’s first Solar CITIES Puxin Digestor

August 24, 2015

In April of 2015, T.H. Culhane of Solar CITIES travelled to Tamera Eco-village in Portugal. Culhane had personally bought and shipped Puxin molds there as a gift to the Global Ecovillage Network in honor of fallen comrade Paulo Mellett. Culhane had announced his intention to make the Puxin molds available to all GEN members at the GEN 19 conference at Zegg Ecovillage in Germany. He followed up on the promise at Paulo’s memorial service at Monkym Wyld Eco-village near Dorset England at the end of the summer of 2014.

At Tamera, Culhane led a workshop in biogas designs that included a dry build of the Puxin system. GEN Director Robert Hall from Suderbyne Ecovillage in Sweden was among the workshop participants being trained. He agreed that since his Ecovillage, on the island of Gotland, was already using commercial biogas for almost all of its gas needs, it would be the ideal place to showcase the technology. It is also a great place to work on the necessary “code compliance creep” wherein we use small scale demonstrations to eventually get policy to encourage this technology.

Paulo Mellett’s wife Ruth Andrade, working with Lush Cosmetics, secured funding from Lush to ship the Solar CITIES molds from Portugal to Sweden where Robert picked them up.

Robert Hall and Alisa Dendro and others from the ecovillage finished Europe’s first Puxin community-scale digester by August of 2015, placing it inside their super cool geodesic dome greenhouse where the fertilizer it produces can help create a year round cornucopia.

You can find out more at their website.

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“Stretcho” Biodigester at Tamera Solar Village

August 20, 2015

“Stretcho” is an IBC tank system that was built during the Solar CITIES Biogas Workshop at Tamera in April 2015. As part of the Experimental Week that took place in August 2015, the IBC tank was wrapped with two layers of stretch foil with an airspace in between to increase internal temperatures of the tank. The results are amazing! Two layers of stretch wrap increase the temperatures significantly and decrease internal temperature fluctuations caused by the daily high and low ambient temperatures.

“Grace Kelly” Biodigester at Tamera Solar Village

August 17, 2015

“Grace Kelly” is one of the biodigesters that were built during the Experimental Week in August 2015 at Tamera Solar Village. It is one of Solar CITIES’ signature IBC biodigesters, insulated with a light straw construction with a dual-IBC floating gas holder.

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“Sao Paulo” Biodigester at Tamera Solar Village

August 13, 2015

“Sao Paulo” is one of the two biodigesters that were built during the Experimental Week at Tamera Solar Village in August of 2015. The system was inspired by Solar CITIES’ 3 IBC tank system in Sao Paulo. At this site, we modified the dual-gas holder system to avoid the use of a water pump. Instead, pressure is created by feeding the fertilizer and gas pipe. These pipes are as high as the the water displacement tank which is on top of the gas storage tank. The digester itself is insulated with straw bales and coated with a light straw mixture.

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Clonakilty Biogas Workshop

July 8, 2015

Our fourth of seven biogas workshops in Ireland took place at a permaculture community garden in Clonakilty, West Cork, just up the street from the hardware store. Into this IBC tank we put pex heating coils similar to what we have done in New York and Pennsylvania. However, at this site we connected them to a layered compost pile with a circulation pump to extract heat from aerobic composting Jean Pain style.

World’s First Kitchen Biodigester in Ireland

July 11, 2015

We installed what we believe is the world’s first in-house in kitchen home biodigester in the apartment of Blue Flame tour organizer and Solar CITIES team members Eimhin David and Chrissie Callanan. They set a precedent for all of us in the movement by making the domestic dragon truly domestic, bringing it in out of the cold. This couple and their community are proving once again “How the Irish Saved Civilization”.

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