Jean Pain was a French inventor who developed a compost-based bioenergy system that produced 100% of his energy needs.

Jean Pain was responsible for about 241-hectare of forest at the place he lived. From the wood residues coming form that forest he created a circular compost that had a biogas fermenter at the inside of the compost pile. Basically all that wood chips around that fermenter acted as a layer of insulation but also were rotting away. That rotting process creates heat that was transferred onto water pipes that were running in circles through the compost pile. By placing radial water pipes in different height the amount of water that the rotting compost could transfer the heat on (we remember that heats goes from the warmer to the colder) was maximized.