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wasted energy on craft/ now waste gas(methane) kiln

updated mon 19 dec 05

 

Brian Haviland on sun 18 dec 05


>>
>>
>>>Vince wrote:
>>>
>>>But I am bothered when I hear people saying that fuel-fired kilns are
>>>environmentally
>>>dirty while electric kilns are clean.
>>
>>
>>
>>Hello again Been in lurk mode for a time...
>>
>>I was driving home the other night from town and I pass the city
>>land-fill (WASTE MANAGEMENT ZONE) and I always am amazed at the blue
>>orange flame being emitted from a stack in the side of a large mound that
>>once used to be a valley Years ago.. I suddenly recalled the conversation
>>on wasted fuel when firing gas kilns and how they emit dirty
>>environmentally unsafe fumes. I searched the archives and found nothing
>>covering methane gas use in firing pottery kilns. My brother in Mo.
>>designs and does cad drawings on Methane gas pumping and storage units.
>>My question to the group is...do you know of some one who is involved in
>>using methane gas as an alternative fuel source for firing pots...and if
>>so is there any drawbacks to this fuel source.
>>Can it be used in firing functional pottery or is there a problem with an
>>exchange of dirty molecules in the gas to the clay or glaze????? I'm not
>>much of a scientist so please excuse my way of approaching this query.
>>And yes i finally got a kiln shed built for my future kiln I hear those
>>bricks calling my name nightly as i try to sleep with visions of mugs and
>>lidded jars dancing in my head. Don't worry I won't start drinkin or
>>doing drugs to suppress the dreams.
>>
>>I'll send pics of the shed to my shutterfly site soon.
>>
>> Brian Haviland
>>
>>
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>you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente
>
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Richard Aerni on sun 18 dec 05


On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 14:24:12 -0500, Brian Haviland
wrote:

>>>I was driving home the other night from town and I pass the city
>>>land-fill (WASTE MANAGEMENT ZONE) and I always am amazed at the blue
>>>orange flame being emitted from a stack in the side of a large mound that
>>>once used to be a valley Years ago.. I suddenly recalled the conversation
>>>on wasted fuel when firing gas kilns and how they emit dirty
>>>environmentally unsafe fumes. I searched the archives and found nothing
>>>covering methane gas use in firing pottery kilns.
>>>My question to the group is...do you know of some one who is involved in
>>>using methane gas as an alternative fuel source for firing pots...and if
>>>so is there any drawbacks to this fuel source.
>>>

Brian,
You may have recalled a conversation about how gas kilns emit dirty
environmentally unsafe fumes while firing, but I believe that information is
incorrect. About twenty five years ago, I was involved in a "project" with
the City of Cincinnati trying to get my cone 10 gas fired kiln legalized in
a crowded urban setting. I won't go into the long and short of it (see
Studio Potter in Dec of 1980, the one with King Kong on the cover), but one
of the bases I covered was having an epidemiologist at the NIOSH facility in
Cincinnat come and analyze the emissions contained in the hot gasses exiting
the stack, as well as configuring the "buoyant plume" of the gasses as they
rose into the existing environment. What this fellow decided was that our
kiln, which was about a 75 cubic foot job, and was fired about 40 plus times
per year, actually emitted fewer toxic substances into the atmosphere than
one automobile does in the course of a normal year of driving (12,000 miles
per year). He dismissed any concerns the city had about our emissions.

As for methane, well, I'm no chemist, but I would just urge you to look at
the chemical composition and see what compounds would able to be created,
given a mixing with oxygen, which is what happens when it would burn. I
would hazard a general guess that burning the methane is not a single bit
more harmful than letting it escape into the atmosphere unburnt. I'm sure
others will chime in with the chemistry.

Best of luck,
Richard Aerni
Rochester, NY

John Britt on sun 18 dec 05


You should check out the Energy Xchange:

http://www.energyxchange.org/

The run a glass shop (2 residents), pottery studio (4 residents), a
tilapia farm, a greenhouse, etc. all on methane from a closed landfil.

The University of North Carolina at Asheville is building it new art
building on a land fill to do the same.

It is a great use of gas.

Best,

John Britt
www.johnbrittpottery.com