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The Biogas Revolution with Alon Civier: PYP 216

Alon Civier is the Customer Experience Manager at HomeBiogas.com, an Israeli startup whose mission is to bring clean and elegant biogas technology to the world.

I discovered biogas when I lived in South Africa six years ago. Some remote Zulu villages had installed underground tanks near their cattle, and every day shoveled manure into these tanks.

Somehow, as the bacteria in the tanks went to work on the manure, methane was produced, which was siphoned off for use in cooking and heating.

Not only was this free energy, but it replaced the messy and dangerous combustion of wood and cow patties as indoor cooking and heating fuel. And it kept the manure from piling up around the settlements and attracting flies and pathogens.

Fast forward to 2016, and I received a wonderful gift from a friend: my own biogas digester, completely unassembled, in a giant cardboard box.

After about a dozen hours and some light profanity, I had put together my HomeBiogas unit. I filled it with 100 pounds of fresh manure from a neighbor's farm, added a bunch of water, and waited.

Three weeks later, I was emptying all my kitchen compost into the unit, and getting a potent slurry of liquid fertilizer from the overflow valve.

And then the methane bladder began to fill. When my wife held a lit Bic up to the tip of the hose, yellow-blue flame appeared.

So this stuff works.

I got on the phone with Alon Civier of HomeBiogas, and had a conversation about the benefits of this old/new technology, and his company's vision for changing the world.

We covered:

  • Alon's love affair with environmental sustainability
  • volunteering at a wind turbine cooperative
  • the difference between aerobic and anaerobic fermentation
  • the difference between liquid propane gas (LPG) and biogas
  • organic waste, methane and the greenhouse effect
  • 12% of global warming caused by methane from garbage
  • the permaculture principle of turning all outputs into valuable inputs
  • searching for circular systems
  • recycling – takes a lot of energy
  • no electricity for biogas – just biological energy
  • uncollected manure creates a nasty smell and health hazard
  • aerobic composting takes months; anaerobic composting provides daily fertilizer
  • minerals from food return to the garden
  • designing units for rural Africa and the Palestinian Authority
  •  liquid fertilizer more important than the biogas
  • DIY system – can ship it and locals can install it themselves
  • put it directly on the ground – don't need to dig a hole
  • maintaining stable pressure with sandbags
  • nickname for the system: The Answer
  • pride that you're producing gas at your own home
  • a miracle – don't need wood for fire
  • saved two hours of wood collecting by using animal manure
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

HomeBiogas.com

Description and history of biogas

Profile of Alon

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Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

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Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

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