Jean Pain Composting Methods

Hey all,
 
 Jeff & Vicky Johns here in Clay City KY.  We have started an Aquaphonics system in our greenhouse and are looking for people that have had experience in building a Jean Pain Mound.  We want to heat both the water through the winter as well as the air in the greenhouse.  This system would permit us to grow year round with no high energy bills. 

We are in the beginning stages of our build so if anyone has found some pitfalls we should avoid, please let us know.

Thanks,

Jeff & Vicky Johns
Seafood Gardens

Had to hit wikki for that one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Pain
 That's a massive pile of decomposing wood chip . I wonder what he covered it with to contain the methane .

 I also wonder how long would the pile produce the methane before you had to replace it .

 My engineer pal Alvin  was very much a  hands on engineering / R&D manager at a large UK sugar beet processing factory. He designed and supervised the build of  a fully enclosed sugar beet waste matter digester using a redundant bulk sugar tank mounted on a 40 tonne trailer.

 It was tipped up at one end so that the waste/spent  residues produced could easily be removed from the lower end , the highest end had an air lock sort of filling arrangement , internally there was a sealed harsh environment  motorized corkscrew agitator to turn things over. I know he had great problems trying to keep the methane away from the oxygen in the new charges of materials in case it made for spontaneous combustion.
 They used a special pump system akin to a coalmine methane extraction system  to extract the methane and compressed it into pressure tested steel gas bottles .

It didn't come cheap & it wasn't easy .

Sorry be the bearer of negative news & not to be of much help

It all sounds very complex but wonderfully clever.