Biogas: Blue and beautiful
Cow dung -- actually, lots of it -- 30 kg per day, to be precise. That is the kind of manure you need to fire up a one-stove burner as an alternative means to the usual rice husk, wood and dung cakes used in our villages. And for that kind of manure to feed the smallest biogas unit of 1 cubic metre capacity, enough to cook for a farm family of four, you need to have three cattle-heads. You also have a choice of 6-biogas plant size to choose from, the largest being 5 cubic metres which is good for several families.
It was one of those chance meetings you have with strangers when you travel. I was returning from Bogra and as the bus stopped for a midway break, I got to chat with Nazmul Haque Faisal. An MBA from Darul Ihsan University, he explained how his organisation, Infrastructural Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), had already put 9,200 of these manure fed biogas stoves into operation. This is indeed a viable alternative clean energy proposition. Not only farm families who are their customers, get the benefit of gas stoves, but the daily slurry produced is rich in organic fertiliser content. A double win indeed. If you are clever enough, you can also use this gas to light up a special bulb.
Moreover, the blue and beautiful flame of a biogas stove is a lot more efficient in terms of energy produced than the usual cow dung, rice husk or wood used for cooking daily meals.
What also surprised me was that IDCOL is a government-owned company, and plays a major role in bridge financing medium and large-scale infrastructure and renewable energy projects in Bangladesh. IDCOL is implementing the National Domestic Biogas and Manure Programme with Faisal as its senior programme manager. Working through partner organisations, the objective is to have at least 60,000 of these stoves up and running by 2011 in as many villages as possible throughout Bangladesh. A study suggests that 3 million of these gas stoves can be installed in Bangladesh, a substantial conservation in terms of money as well as resources for the rural economy.
The entire project is funded by the government along with major donors, Netherlands Development Organisation and German Development Bank. It takes a fortnight to build a unit and you have ready to use gas before the month is out. Imagine the freedom a farmer's wife gets out of using a biogas stove. It is not only the ease of convenience but also avoiding eyes and respiratory health hazards of a smoke filled kitchen that arise out of burning fuel like wood, rice husk, or cow dung. A study shows that using a biogas stove brings health benefits to womenfolk, saves them at least an hour, time they use for other household chores.
It is not only cattle manure that feeds a biogas plant. A poultry farm of 200 birds and their droppings is a good enough source to fire up a biogas kitchen stove. Imagine the potential savings in terms of alternative fuel with more than 100,000 such poultry farms existing in Bangladesh. Not only birds or cattle, even human night soil contributes to the production of biogas. Thus, the family's toilet can be fed into a biogas plant improving overall sanitation.
With an IDCOL subsidy of Tk 9,000 on the total cost of nearly Tk 22,000 per installation, the user has to finance the rest for which a microcredit loan is also available. The biogas plant pays back within five years. Other organisations including a major contributor BCSIR (Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) have been promoting biogas for years now, and it is estimated that more than 40,000 of these biogas units are installed. Do they work? According to Faisal, half do. The other half plants are underfed with manure and cannot produce enough gas. However as their experience curve has gone up, Faisal and his team are not making the initial teething mistakes and IDCOL's success rate is 97.5 percent. This is because of their farmer selection process that ensures enough cattle heads to feed the biogas unit.
In the recent science fair of our Foundation School in Dhaka, I was amazed how our young students have become aware of the need for alternate and clean energy. One particular group led by Raimat Kibria had all the alternative energies to show, solar panel, wind turbine and of course biogas for a model village.
If there is anything that makes Faisal thrive, it is innovation. This innovative approach to help our folks use waste into a resource instills in him the energy to travel around and spread the gospel of blue and beautiful clean energy, indeed a great godsend for rural Bangladesh. As these biogas plants spread, rural Bangladesh can wean out of the faltering electrical gridline energy to these alternate means and eventually and truly build up these model villages.
The writer is managing director of Syngenta Bangladesh Ltd.
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