The conflict of growing crops for biomass or food.

That is exactly what happens at the sewage treatment plant, where the solids are separated and used as fertilizer. The treatment is to kill pathogens in the solids, the liquid is treated by varying methods and returned to the water course.


During heavy rain the sluice gates are opened and everything get's put into river/sea. As far as I understand this is most of the Autumn/Winter/Spring rain period. Obviously depends on the weather.

Nitrogen in human waste is lost anyway.
 
It should also be regulated that all the by-product should be returned to whence it came - the land/soil on a pro-rata basis.


Spot on. That's really what we should be looking for and is true recycling.

However, the real problem IMHO is the fact that rainwater falling on people's houses immediately gets mixed with foul water in the sewerage system. Something I doubt the government has the stomach for to fix - because this causes overflow problems at sewerage works.
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
That is exactly what happens at the sewage treatment plant, where the solids are separated and used as fertilizer. The treatment is to kill pathogens in the solids, the liquid is treated by varying methods and returned to the water course.
A friend of mine works in a water treatment facility, after hearing what they use to ‘treat’ the water would put you off it for life!
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
1180 calories for an adult in France in WW2
Thank you. Less than I recollected. No idea how I would be able to work on that!
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Spot on. That's really what we should be looking for and is true recycling.

However, the real problem IMHO is the fact that rainwater falling on people's houses immediately gets mixed with foul water in the sewerage system. Something I doubt the government has the stomach for to fix - because this causes overflow problems at sewerage works.
And the more houses they build the greater the problem becomes! Governments are very keen on building houses, not so keen on admitting the problem it causes.
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
A friend of mine works in a water treatment facility, after hearing what they use to ‘treat’ the water would put you off it for life!
They use floculants and coagulants, this explains it fairly well.

On the diagram, where is says "secondary treatment" it is after that, that sludge becomes fit to be used as a fertilizer.

 
They use floculants and coagulants, this explains it fairly well.

On the diagram, where is says "secondary treatment" it is after that, that sludge becomes fit to be used as a fertilizer.



During Winter rainfall they can't do that process due to the sheer volume. I guess it must happen at times during Spring/Summer as well.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Or, we are using perfectly good land that could be used to grow feed-stock to produce energy, we need both food and energy, we can't survive without either of them.

AD is the only flexible renewable that re-cycles all the nutrient AND produces base load energy. No other source of renewable energy comes anywhere close on efficiency.

...and for the umpteenth time:


As many know, Germany (and France) has 000's of AD Plants, and this debate is a non-event.

In m3 per ton/£ of CH4/ha, nothing can compete with Maize, hence it's the crop of choice.

However, we must do much more with waste, which should be legislated that it must go to AD.

The AD plants should be designed and located where the gas can be upgraded and injected into the gas grid, and any surplus heat utilised on-site.

It should also be regulated that all the by-product should be returned to whence it came - the land/soil on a pro-rata basis.
We need food and energy but we don't have to use arable ground to produce energy, be that AD plants or plonking solar panels on it. Burning thousands of tons of wood chip every day instead of just building a nuclear plant is just as daft in my opinion.
Until we can produce food in some other way that doesn't involve land, prime arable land should really be used for food.
AD plants should be run on waste only.

Are you involved in an AD plant?
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
1653384595226.png
 
I'm fairly certain that they used to use lime in sewage treatment but at what step in the process I am not sure. My understanding was that more and more sewage is put through an onsite AD plant to recover the useful energy in it and help power the rest of the process. One of the important steps is filtering the liquid through successively smaller sand/gravel beds which basically captures all the suspended particles. After that, oxygenation helps turbocharge the bacterial breakdown of whatever is left.

If sludge is not sent to land it should be incinerated in a waste to energy plant to destroy all the microplastics in it. The resultant ash could be used as fertiliser or probably aggregate for building.
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
We need food and energy but we don't have to use arable ground to produce energy, be that AD plants or plonking solar panels on it. Burning thousands of tons of wood chip every day instead of just building a nuclear plant is just as daft in my opinion.
Until we can produce food in some other way that doesn't involve land, prime arable land should really be used for food.
AD plants should be run on waste only.

Are you involved in an AD plant?
In the UK we were faced with a major challenge. Much of our dated energy production plants were coming to the end of their life, and little in the pipeline to replace them.

Kyoto committed us to a renewables target over the coming years, and renewables was not only the way, but also helped bridge the gap between our out of date generation and new nuclear.

Nuclear is our future for base load electricity, however nuclear does not produce gas. So, we either phase it out, or ensure a free and competitive marketplace and offer both.

Developing fossil fuel gas fields is off the agenda (maybe the agenda could change). So gas imports and some renewable's is the way to go at present.

Having lived through intervention and set-aside without any food shortages, I have no issue with any land being used for renewables as nothing is forever.

The days for crop only AD plants is over in the UK, unless they are very, very big and are injecting into the gas grid, and are in it for the long game.

However, as said earlier, the waste market still has lot's of legs for growth. The waste could be food waste, commercial and industrial, but also agricultural.

There are millions of tons of slurry, manure, milk, abattoir, ++++ waste, all related to the Agricultural Food Chain, we need to think much more holistically, and start to consider very large community plants taking hundreds of thousands of tons, with hundreds of stake holders which can really make a difference.

All the nutrient can then be returned to the land, and help see a much reduced demand for chemical based fert.

The opportunity is there now, the one major obstacle is our attitude to federate.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 3 1.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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