Many years ago I had a water well drilled to supply water for our lake. While drilling it blew out when the C. B. M. layer was hit.
I have decided to try and capture this gas and utilize it.
It only produces gas while water is being produced. I am capturing gas between the casing and the production pipe. Enough volume to run my Bobcat welder/generator. I built a pvc separator to catch the gas escaping in the water to determine the volume of gas in the water that turned out to be substantial.
I had the gas analyzed by a local oilfield company. It is almost pure methane.

From my research the folks that hold the mineral lease on my property are not interested in this resource.

My question for the group. Does anyone know of a company that could supply me a small scale separator and automation to manage this resource.
Thanks for any input.

Have fun blowing yourself up!

OnlyForNow said:

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Have fun blowing yourself up!

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Thank you for your constructive input.

If you can post a screenshot of the gas analysis and give a better description of what you are trying to do I could possibly point you to some vendors and offer some musings on how I might set this up that definitely shouldn't be construed as advice…

Also you picked a hell of a time to be looking for separation and automation equipment…

I think your seriously risking your life by wanting to do this without professional help.

If it's naturally separated from the water and almost pure, just put a capture device on it, a small compressor and a reservoir tank with tap. Even if it's mixed wet gas with 90%+ CH3, it will burn cleanly enough that your equipment should be fine, minus cleaning injectors/carbs more often.

BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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If you can post a screenshot of the gas analysis and give a better description of what you are trying to do I could possibly point you to some vendors and offer some musings on how I might set this up that definitely shouldn't be construed as advice…

Also you picked a hell of a time to be looking for separation and automation equipment…

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Thank you for your time and input.

Chromatograph analysis.

Spot gas sample @7psi & 78 degrees F

Mol%. Component

19.568 Nitrogen
1.853. Carbon Dioxide
78.520. Methane

My goal is to produce as much AC power as the volume of gas will produce from a Cummins generator sized to match the produced gas volume.

As far as people saying you'll blow yourself up... That is a possibility.

Methane is a Class IIA gas. You need to follow the requirements of NFPA 70, the national electric code, for the electrical installation.

If you decide to pursue this further, be careful and do it right.

Tx95Ag said:

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As far as people saying you'll blow yourself up... That is a possibility.

Methane is a Class IIA gas. You need to follow the requirements of NFPA 70, the national electric code, for the electrical installation.

If you decide to pursue this further, be careful and do it right.

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Thank you for your input.

I spent my career involved in manufacturing and support in many different industrial areas.

I know my limits and that is why at this point I am looking for specialized professional help.
I am amazed at the "you will put your eye out kid"attitude from some. I am shocked at how many are afraid of their own shadow.
I have always looked for challenges to conquer.

How are you planning to store it? Got a big tank? And, more importantly, how are you going to get the gas into the tank? You will need a compressor, but I am not sure any old compressor will work. Collecting gas is fairly intensive and I am not sure it is feasible on such a small scale. Maybe you have enough pressure from the formation to push the gas and you could run your equipment from a hose and piping.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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How are you planning to store it? Got a big tank? And, more importantly, how are you going to get the gas into the tank? You will need a compressor, but I am not sure any old compressor will work. Collecting gas is fairly intensive and I am not sure it is feasible on such a small scale. Maybe you have enough pressure from the formation to push the gas and you could run your equipment from a hose and piping.

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I am looking for professional help in designing and engineering from this point forward.
I don't absolutely know the answers to your questions.
I would hope I would not be storing much at all. I was running my Miller Bobcat welder from a 1/4" copper line tapped into the side of the casing. I hope to be consuming it as it is produced. I would imagine a small amount would need to be under a bit of pressure to handle power peaks such as a governor kicking in on the engine.
But this is the type professional help I am looking for.

Quote:

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I spent my career involved in manufacturing and support in many different industrial areas.

I know my limits and that is why at this point I am looking for specialized professional help.
I am amazed at the "you will put your eye out kid"attitude from some. I am shocked at how many are afraid of their own shadow.

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Most folks on here don't have your background, so building something to capture gas coming out of the ground & using it to power equipment ranks somewhere between juggling chainsaws & wingsuit flying in terms of potential danger. (I would include myself in the latter category, btw) I'm happily a risk taker in some areas... but not being an engineer type I'd stay far, far away.

I say more power to you... interested to see your set-up, please post pics. I'd also say get something in writing from the folks that own the mineral rights to cya (but you probably have already done this).

I know a place you can buy an El Paso Stripper. Yeah yeah, el paso stripper. It will separate voc's from water on a small scale, but it takes clean air to do it. Putting more air into your gas will dilute your concentration and may not be enough to run the equipment without adding a step in to concentrate it again.

I don't know where you are doing this, but always beware of H2S with stuff coming out of the ground. Your area might be clean, but be careful.

On a serious note and engineering wise (and I'm not an engineer), with a setup this small, hopeandchange will probably need at least two pressure-controlled vessels; the first will be mixed with gas and water/water vapor, etc, then it should probably be distilled/frac'd/cracked and then put into another pressure vessel for storage and use.

If you already have a setup that allows you to use the gas as it's produced, I don't see what else you need...

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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I know a place you can buy an El Paso Stripper. Yeah yeah, el paso stripper. It will separate voc's from water on a small scale, but it takes clean air to do it. Putting more air into your gas will dilute your concentration and may not be enough to run the equipment without adding a step in to concentrate it again.

I don't know where you are doing this, but always beware of H2S with stuff coming out of the ground. Your area might be clean, but be careful.

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Having the gas tested is the first thing I did.
Thanks for your input.
The diversity on this forum is what makes it such a valuable resource.
Many thanks to you all for your input.
I would love to find the guy that could say hey call my buddy at so and so company and they can handle what you want turn key. That might not be a reasonable hope.

OnlyForNow said:

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On a serious note and engineering wise (and I'm not an engineer), with a setup this small, hopeandchange will probably need at least two pressure-controlled vessels; the first will be mixed with gas and water/water vapor, etc, then it should probably be distilled/frac'd/cracked and then put into another pressure vessel for storage and use.

If you already have a setup that allows you to use the gas as it's produced, I don't see what else you need...

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I can currently use the gas pressure built up that is under pressure and stored between the well casing and the production pipe. It will max out at 7psi. The volume stored in the casing is substantial.
What I think I need is a process to automate the control of the water flow versus the gas flow. Electric valves and their control. Pump control on and off depending on gas production rates and pressure and so on.
Control technology has changed just a bit and my skills here are extremely outdated.

Interesting project. I'm sort of in this line of work, but I deal with this on a larger scale.

Curiously, do you have an estimate of the volume of gas we're talking about? What is the depth of the well above the gas/water interface? What is the OD of the inner pipe and the ID of the outer pipe?

Any idea on the flow rate of the gas?

I'm not sure I can help, but I'm curious about this concept.

Go to an oil and gas yard and purchase a small separator. Use a pressure regulator to vent the gas when the pressure gets too high so you can still use your water well.

I applaud your ingenuity. You remind me of my grandpa. He thought about creating things, then did it. Seems there would be a ton of expertise either on this board or someone that knows someone. I wish you the best in your endeavor.

I mean, if it supplies enough pressure and volume to run the equipment when you need it, why don't you just turn on the pump when it's needed?

Is there something more automated than supplying electricity to the pump that you want, if it, as I read it, this satisfies your needs...

Cen-Tex said:

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I applaud your ingenuity. You remind me of my grandpa. He thought about creating things, then did it. Seems there would be a ton of expertise either on this board or someone that knows someone. I wish you the best in your endeavor.

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That just might be the best compliment I have ever gotten. To be compared to anyones Grandpa is an honor. Thank you for that Sir.
I owned a job shop machine shop for 30 years.
We would work on anything that came in the door 1/8" O.D. - 120"O.D. except time keeping devices(watches,clocks) and cameras of any kind. Our motto was we can put you on the Moon if you can write the P. O.
I would have enjoyed your Grandpa's company.

so after tossing this around in my head for a bit, here are my thoughts.

• I will again reiterate my "do not try this at home" warning. while I am a petroleum P.E., in no way should this be construed as professional advice to be followed. take any of my musings at your own risk as natural gas is a dangerous substance. if you want real advice, hire an engineer to come put eyes on it and design you something.
• If the testing company didn't do this when they did the chromatograph, I would be sure to have the gas stream checked for H2S content. and then if the gas has H2S, I would recommend abandoning the idea of using the gas. That stuff is nasty (to equipment and health) and not something I would want to "poor boy" a solution for.
• you mention someone holding the mineral lease. does that mean you are the mineral owner and they leased from you? assuming yes, you will probably want to be really careful using minerals that are otherwise leased. I would review the lease and 1) check whether or not it covers the depth interval you are drawing from and 2) if it does but they don't want it, either make sure the lease doesn't prevent you from extracting the gas or get a legal agreement with the lessee stating you can do what you are contemplating. if you aren't the mineral owner, you need to get a lease signed with the mineral owner for your use (both the contemplated use and honestly even what you have already done powering your welder) otherwise it's technically theft. as dangerous as the gas may be, i'd say the lawyers are likely a close second.
• To begin figuring out the scope of what I could use the gas for, I would try a crude flow test and see how much gas I could get from the casing and from the separated water stream. You could build a crude gas flow meter out of some 1-1/2" or 2" PVC, a bit of rigid material (steel is ideal but anything flat and rigid will work) for an orifice plate, a ball valve, and a couple of 0-10 psi pressure gauges. Basically, you would make a plate that fits snugly inside a coupler and then lock it in with the pipe like shown here. Then you tap a hole 1" upstream and 1" downstream of the plate and using the ball valve at the end crack it to a couple of different opening amounts and check your pressure readings on each side of the plate. then there is an app store app called "Orifice Flow rate calculator" that you can put the info into and get what the flow rate was at each of those pressures. I would do this for both the casing line and the gas being separated from the water. this will get the info needed to size your other equipment
• as for the actual system I would personally avoid any set up that requires storing the gas. there is a reason most gas systems are "on demand" type systems and don't attempt to store the gas like you would a liquid. besides the technical headache of actually accomplishing this, large amounts of gas stored under pressure are very dangerous. even inert gas stores a lot of energy when you pressurize it. here is a video of a line pressured to rupture with just nitrogen. you can see the amount of energy released without combustion even being a factor.
• with an on demand system i would imagine trying to keep your automation really simple. a pressure regulator controlling flow from the casing to the generator when it starts pulling, a pressure regulator on the water/gas separator to pull gas into the mixed stream when the casing side can't keep up and drops below a certain pressure, and a pressure switch for your water pump that kicks on the water flow when the casing pressure drops to that set point and you need the extra gas. then you can run the generator as needed and the gas flow will adjust to match the need.
• for your generator sizing, the problem you will likely run into is that your cummins rep isn't going to like that gas. with your nitrogen content that high, you are only going to be supplying 795 btu/scf gas, which will likely be below the spec for any consumer generator. Doesn't mean it wont run, just that the salesman will likely tell you it isn't an acceptable fuel source. in practice that means you won't be getting the rated power from your generator and may wear out components faster than normal. You can combat this a little by running your supply gas pressure a tad higher that the recommended pressure (denser gas=more btu/cf), but you have to be careful doing that for obvious reasons.

those are my thoughts over lunch on this, i'll probably add more later as i continue to ponder this.

Usoos said:

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Interesting project. I'm sort of in this line of work, but I deal with this on a larger scale.

Curiously, do you have an estimate of the volume of gas we're talking about? What is the depth of the well above the gas/water interface? What is the OD of the inner pipe and the ID of the outer pipe?

Any idea on the flow rate of the gas?

I'm not sure I can help, but I'm curious about this concept.

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The casing is 8"O.D.
The production pipe is 1 1/2"
The well is 280' deep and the water table fluctuates.
Best I remember the water table is about 220'.

Quote:

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Our motto was we can put you on the Moon if you can write the P. O.

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Kick ass

BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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so after tossing this around in my head for a bit, here are my thoughts.

• I will again reiterate my "do not try this at home" warning. while I am a petroleum P.E., in no way should this be construed as professional advice to be followed. take any of my musings at your own risk as natural gas is a dangerous substance. if you want real advice, hire an engineer to come put eyes on it and design you something.
• If the testing company didn't do this when they did the chromatograph, I would be sure to have the gas stream checked for H2S content. and then if the gas has H2S, I would recommend abandoning the idea of using the gas. That stuff is nasty (to equipment and health) and not something I would want to "poor boy" a solution for.
• you mention someone holding the mineral lease. does that mean you are the mineral owner and they leased from you? assuming yes, you will probably want to be really careful using minerals that are otherwise leased. I would review the lease and 1) check whether or not it covers the depth interval you are drawing from and 2) if it does but they don't want it, either make sure the lease doesn't prevent you from extracting the gas or get a legal agreement with the lessee stating you can do what you are contemplating. if you aren't the mineral owner, you need to get a lease signed with the mineral owner for your use (both the contemplated use and honestly even what you have already done powering your welder) otherwise it's technically theft. as dangerous as the gas may be, i'd say the lawyers are likely a close second.
• To begin figuring out the scope of what I could use the gas for, I would try a crude flow test and see how much gas I could get from the casing and from the separated water stream. You could build a crude gas flow meter out of some 1-1/2" or 2" PVC, a bit of rigid material (steel is ideal but anything flat and rigid will work) for an orifice plate, a ball valve, and a couple of 0-10 psi pressure gauges. Basically, you would make a plate that fits snugly inside a coupler and then lock it in with the pipe like shown here. Then you tap a hole 1" upstream and 1" downstream of the plate and using the ball valve at the end crack it to a couple of different opening amounts and check your pressure readings on each side of the plate. then there is an app store app called "Orifice Flow rate calculator" that you can put the info into and get what the flow rate was at each of those pressures. I would do this for both the casing line and the gas being separated from the water. this will get the info needed to size your other equipment
• as for the actual system I would personally avoid any set up that requires storing the gas. there is a reason most gas systems are "on demand" type systems and don't attempt to store the gas like you would a liquid. besides the technical headache of actually accomplishing this, large amounts of gas stored under pressure are very dangerous. even inert gas stores a lot of energy when you pressurize it. here is a video of a line pressured to rupture with just nitrogen. you can see the amount of energy released without combustion even being a factor.
• with an on demand system i would imagine trying to keep your automation really simple. a pressure regulator controlling flow from the casing to the generator when it starts pulling, a pressure regulator on the water/gas separator to pull gas into the mixed stream when the casing side can't keep up and drops below a certain pressure, and a pressure switch for your water pump that kicks on the water flow when the casing pressure drops to that set point and you need the extra gas. then you can run the generator as needed and the gas flow will adjust to match the need.
• for your generator sizing, the problem you will likely run into is that your cummins rep isn't going to like that gas. with your nitrogen content that high, you are only going to be supplying 795 btu/scf gas, which will likely be below the spec for any consumer generator. Doesn't mean it wont run, just that the salesman will likely tell you it isn't an acceptable fuel source. in practice that means you won't be getting the rated power from your generator and may wear out components faster than normal. You can combat this a little by running your supply gas pressure a tad higher that the recommended pressure (denser gas=more btu/cf), but you have to be careful doing that for obvious reasons.

those are my thoughts over lunch on this, i'll probably add more later as i continue to ponder this.

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Great input. This is what I am looking for. Thanks for the flow rate idea.

Cool project. I look forward to following along.

With such small flow rates, you may be better off with a small natural gas filter dryer as opposed to a separator.

McGibblets said:

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With such small flow rates, you may be better off with a small natural gas filter dryer as opposed to a separator.

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it was my understanding the separator was to pull gas out of the water stream from the water well side of the well, not that he was trying to dry the gas. i would think pumping several gpm of water through a filter dryer would quickly become a problem for it.

hopeandrealchange said:

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BlackGoldAg2011 said:

---

so after tossing this around in my head for a bit, here are my thoughts.

• I will again reiterate my "do not try this at home" warning. while I am a petroleum P.E., in no way should this be construed as professional advice to be followed. take any of my musings at your own risk as natural gas is a dangerous substance. if you want real advice, hire an engineer to come put eyes on it and design you something.
• If the testing company didn't do this when they did the chromatograph, I would be sure to have the gas stream checked for H2S content. and then if the gas has H2S, I would recommend abandoning the idea of using the gas. That stuff is nasty (to equipment and health) and not something I would want to "poor boy" a solution for.
• you mention someone holding the mineral lease. does that mean you are the mineral owner and they leased from you? assuming yes, you will probably want to be really careful using minerals that are otherwise leased. I would review the lease and 1) check whether or not it covers the depth interval you are drawing from and 2) if it does but they don't want it, either make sure the lease doesn't prevent you from extracting the gas or get a legal agreement with the lessee stating you can do what you are contemplating. if you aren't the mineral owner, you need to get a lease signed with the mineral owner for your use (both the contemplated use and honestly even what you have already done powering your welder) otherwise it's technically theft. as dangerous as the gas may be, i'd say the lawyers are likely a close second.
• To begin figuring out the scope of what I could use the gas for, I would try a crude flow test and see how much gas I could get from the casing and from the separated water stream. You could build a crude gas flow meter out of some 1-1/2" or 2" PVC, a bit of rigid material (steel is ideal but anything flat and rigid will work) for an orifice plate, a ball valve, and a couple of 0-10 psi pressure gauges. Basically, you would make a plate that fits snugly inside a coupler and then lock it in with the pipe like shown here. Then you tap a hole 1" upstream and 1" downstream of the plate and using the ball valve at the end crack it to a couple of different opening amounts and check your pressure readings on each side of the plate. then there is an app store app called "Orifice Flow rate calculator" that you can put the info into and get what the flow rate was at each of those pressures. I would do this for both the casing line and the gas being separated from the water. this will get the info needed to size your other equipment
• as for the actual system I would personally avoid any set up that requires storing the gas. there is a reason most gas systems are "on demand" type systems and don't attempt to store the gas like you would a liquid. besides the technical headache of actually accomplishing this, large amounts of gas stored under pressure are very dangerous. even inert gas stores a lot of energy when you pressurize it. here is a video of a line pressured to rupture with just nitrogen. you can see the amount of energy released without combustion even being a factor.
• with an on demand system i would imagine trying to keep your automation really simple. a pressure regulator controlling flow from the casing to the generator when it starts pulling, a pressure regulator on the water/gas separator to pull gas into the mixed stream when the casing side can't keep up and drops below a certain pressure, and a pressure switch for your water pump that kicks on the water flow when the casing pressure drops to that set point and you need the extra gas. then you can run the generator as needed and the gas flow will adjust to match the need.
• for your generator sizing, the problem you will likely run into is that your cummins rep isn't going to like that gas. with your nitrogen content that high, you are only going to be supplying 795 btu/scf gas, which will likely be below the spec for any consumer generator. Doesn't mean it wont run, just that the salesman will likely tell you it isn't an acceptable fuel source. in practice that means you won't be getting the rated power from your generator and may wear out components faster than normal. You can combat this a little by running your supply gas pressure a tad higher that the recommended pressure (denser gas=more btu/cf), but you have to be careful doing that for obvious reasons.

those are my thoughts over lunch on this, i'll probably add more later as i continue to ponder this.

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Great input. This is what I am looking for. Thanks for the flow rate idea.

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if you decide to make your orifice plate, a couple of design tips:

• plate thickness should be 1/8"
• throat thickness (the little flat part where the bevel stops) should be 1/32"
• if you don't have any way to cut the bevel, you can instead counter bore that side with a much large hole instead (the idea is to have the gas crossing a very specifically sized restriction and have the remaining material "get out of the way" of the gas flow as quickly as possible.
• your main bore hole in the plate should be between 20% and 70% of the i.d. of whatever pipe you use

cbminers said:

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You might not want to hear this but...

Not sure where you are located but you almost certainly need a permit (or multiple permits) to pursue this. You probably need a permit to do what you've already done.

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A couple of things.

#1. That's not pure methane, and the analysis does not add up to 100%. As the other poster mentioned, H2S matters, and in the ppm level it can be dangerous. If this is mixed with your well water, you should know whether you have H2S even without the gas analysis indicating it.

#2. That's a lot of inerts. The heating value of that gas is only 800 Btu/scf. Natural gas is normally around 1000 Btu/scf.

#3. The gas is going to be wet. You will need to dehydrate it.

#4. With that amount of inerts, I would be concerned about the Methane Number being out of range for your engine. Think of Methane Number like "octane" for a car engine.

If I were handed this project, I would immediately start looking at ways to condition the gas. I would be looking at a nitrogen removal membrane as well as a desiccant to dry the gas (ex. silica gel). Both are small, modular, cartridge based technologies.

Looks like someone has used GERP for CAT engines before. Luckily the inerts are N2 instead of CO2. I'd be more worried about engine performance and longevity if CO2 as CO2 can increase the valve temperature of your engine. Still need to confirm engine compatibility with the fuel analysis as high amounts of N2 can cause special fuel system requirements in order to flow enough fuel into the engine.

Would also recommend having someone look into this and not going about it yourself.

I have learned a lot today. Many thanks to you all.
Had to google Gerp. Looks like I am going to be reaching out to some old friends /customers at Mustang to learn more.
After selling my business and retiring I learned really fast I needed to stay involved in some kind of challenging project. This one is working out well.

I'm impressed with your initiative, keep us posted on your progress.

50 years ago during the Arab Oil Embargo, the original Mother Earth News had a series of articles about utilizing small scale methane, primarily from animal manure "digesters". They had storage systems, etc.
They had a very creative technical staff that were workshop geniuses.

Perhaps if you can find those ideas you could expand to direct use source vs fueling an IC engine.
Of course they didn't have to deal with hydrogen sulfide.

Also the Peace Corp had small scale technical initiatives in the 1980s to convert 3rd world countries from wood for heating & cooking fuel to methane sources.

Good luck to you sir!

Fair enough. Knew that was coming. I'll take the comment down.

Just wouldn't want OP's project to be derailed having never contemplated it.

hopeandrealchange said:

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Tx95Ag said:

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As far as people saying you'll blow yourself up... That is a possibility.

Methane is a Class IIA gas. You need to follow the requirements of NFPA 70, the national electric code, for the electrical installation.

If you decide to pursue this further, be careful and do it right.

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Thank you for your input.

I spent my career involved in manufacturing and support in many different industrial areas.

I know my limits and that is why at this point I am looking for specialized professional help.
I am amazed at the "you will put your eye out kid"attitude from some. I am shocked at how many are afraid of their own shadow.
I have always looked for challenges to conquer.

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If you post asking about a recommendation for $80 socks or what shape your boots should be you will have better luck. Bring something awesome and very much outdoors and some people don't know how to handle it.