z-Biogas Flare Summary
Project: Biogas Flare Reports
Deliver to Don a summary of all operation activities for BioRem for 2023 and 2024.
Customer: in house
Purpose: Documentation, standardization, iterative improvement
#deadline: 30 January 2025
Audio info from people/Rodney Williams: (C:\Users\george.bennett\OneDrive - City of Memphis\Documents\Projects\0000-Maxson\2023-2024 BioRem Activity\Rodney Williams - BioRem Maintenance 2023-2024.m4a - Shortcut)
Don Hudgins
George, you should be able to get the maintenance data from Krishna regarding Hexagon data. He may need your guidance how to identify it in the system. Check with Mike Brower for any log books that can be reviewed for Biorem activities so you can start getting up to speed. My other email should explain some of the big picture related to this project. Thanks for your assistance! -
Conversation with Don Hudgins at noon, Friday
Anything significant - equipment out of service, spike
Going to our annual report, in house purposes
Quality control
Sufficient - look
Trends - look for tripping hazards
Enhanced maintenance for proper maintenance - replacement parts
Understand it
Develop SOP's
Where do SOP's live
Within the next 6-12 months, when we're generating Biogas, we'll be submitting an operation report to the county.
Look at Tioga's records in the shared drive, for exhaust samples.
Comparable
Cogen system at Stiles plant -
CDM Smith is developing SOP's and a manual for operations at the plant - see examples, talk to Mike, look at old operation manuals, SOP's by Black & Veatch from the 90's as an example (a good example to shoot for) - BioRem
What are we doing? Document it as if it's good, while also identifying gaps
Learn reporting requirement to the health department: continuous monitoring, and if not we must have handheld units
- Where does the continuous monitoring data go?
- Connection, Lorde and Company, meant to push data to Ovation - talk to Peter Gabor
Tioga takes creek samples, and Henry uses that to do a bi-weekly or monthly report to TVA
Oxygen intrusion - we don't want oxygen in the biogas
- How charactering negative delta in elemental sulfur?
- Periodic cleaning - be methods- divert wash water to a tank (low pH is a hazard) - settle out, hire a company to put on hazmat suits to apply a base to it or dewater it and get a product
Optimize, challenge the system with consistent biogas, iterative improvement
Purposes:
- 250 tons a year of SO2 sulfide or else we violate our permit with air compliance
- Business element - paying off the loan
Where is the closest plant that uses biogas - out west.
California
Some people use biogas for engines, if the sulfur content is limited.
Reduced sulfur, high btu
- Get BTU up by decrease amount of oxygen coming in - get cover tight - look for leaks, get them fixed
- BioRem effectiveness
- Iron salt reduces sulfur content - another project all together, to mitigate sulfur coming in, in sewer system
- 1000 ppm of hydrogen sufilde, up to 5000 maybe, is what we can expect to mitigate with a BioRem - more than that it is overwhelmed.
- Ask Henry Nakayama / Tioga for ppm numbers.
- iterative improvement while avoiding catastrophic failure - are we overlooking something, where are the failure modes that will knock out our experiment: the heat exchangers to heat the water, are they being properly maintained
- What are we doing to #winterize and freeze up the system KEY PRIORITY
- Look at typical winterizing procedures for other BioRem systems
- Up in Minnesota, farmers use a lot of biogas (for what?) - livestock waste management, manure digesting. : Minnesota Biogas and Energy Potential | American Biogas Council
- Some cities (California) will concentrate and purify their biogas and put it back on the grid
Recirculation pumps to keep the product in motion (like leaving your sink dripping)
Tioga is tasked with air permit compliance
There has never been a formal commissioning period, because it has never really worked right
Automation operating: flow meters to trigger a sump, talk to Mike
Filters for sensor
/////
Chris Luss says that the BioRem system has already been winterized as of early December - it is drained of water and there should be no issues
////
Learn from the big dogs:
Championing the Biogas Industry | American Biogas
Digester Operator Certification - American Biogas Council
ABCs Digestate Certification Program – Certifying anaerobic digestate through verified labs
Honda Indy Grand Prix shines public spotlight on biogas | Bioenergy Insight Magazine
Benefits of Biogas | American Biogas Council
////
Henry Nakayama
- Vector attraction reduction
- High residence time is necessary for pathogen reduction and #vector attraction reduction
- The lagoon serving as a biogas reactor (or digester) is secondary
- Great example: East Bay MUD
- To get an actual biogas reactor would cost 30+ million dollars
- Agitate the lagoon with a equipment/Submarine Drone
////
- Records/BioRem Logs 2022-2024
///
Plan now: Use the information from Rodney Williams to create a list like:
