This study assesses the potential for bioenergy production using various feedstocks such as sugarcane, oil palm, and municipal solid waste in six Caribbean small island developing states – Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.
in countries where a large number of the population still live in villages, biogas could serve as a potentially limitless fuel source for a variety of purposes. But one problem with burning biogas is the production of many polluting byproducts because of inefficient burning of the fuel. Now a team …
the Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute ( spreri) in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, has developed a low-cost upflow anaerobic filter (uaf ) that not only treats diary effluents efficiently, but also produces biogass in substantial quantities as a byproduct, which can be used as fuel. Diary industries generate a large …
in the 1980s, a few institutional and community biogas plants were set up in some villages by cooperating centres of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research ( icar )-sponsored All India Coordinated Research Project. Islampur village in Bhopal was one of the villages selected. As in any other village, cowdung …
SINCE February 1998, four villages in Tumkur district, Karnataka, arc using oil from the Pongamia pinnata seed to fuel alternator engines in biogas plants. Though efficiency of this oil is about 20 per cent lower than that of diesel, countries such as Australia and Fiji are switching over to it …
The Centre of Science for Villages (CSV), Wardha, Maharashtra, has developed a microbiogas plant with a battery of 300 litres clay jars, which is known as Ranjan biogas plant. The biogas plant is a large clay pot churned on the potter's wheel that is utilised for storing water during summers. …
an improved biogas system has recently been developed by a Haryana-based non-governmental organisation. Compared with existing systems that produce inflammable methane by fermenting biological waste, this new system from the Social Centre for Rural Initiative and Advancement ( scria ) in Khori village, Haryana, is less expensive and can be …
most active participants engaged in the field of energy recovery from wastes agree that a rapid expansion of the acti-vity can result only if this area attains the status of an industry, fully self-sufficient and standing on its own legs. Recently a team of scientists led by P Rajabapiah from …
the national programme on biogas development ( npbd ) has been one of the most high-profile renewable energy programmes of northern India. The programme, which was introduced in 1981-82, has made significant contribution in terms of providing clean and convenient fuel and fertiliser to rural families. However, the programme has …
in our country, most of the biogas plants installed are based on cowdung. In a significant departure from the usual, the Sadar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, has developed a biogas plant which works on kitchen waste and aquatic weeds (Rural Technology, Vol 8, No 2). Large …
BIOGAS, an asset to rural India for fuel can also provide water and manure from the plant's slurry. The biogas plant utilises animal dung and water to produce high quality gas and slurry, which can serve as an excellent manure. But since this slurry is very dilute (94-95 per cent …
UNATTRACTIVE mounds of banana peels are a common sight in rural Thailand. A project undertaken recently, aims at converting this waste into energy. Using biogas technology, the Solar Energy and Training Centre (sert) of Naresuan University in Thailand, is using this waste to procure biogas for basic rural energy requirements, …
FOR the residents of Nari, a village of 700 households in the Una district of Himachal Pradesh, underdevelopment and poverty is losing its harsh edge, thanks to the introduction of a few simple and cheap devices like water seal toilets and biogas plants. The devices are being promoted by the …
VIDYAVATI is a happy housewife today. Free cooking gas runs in her kitchen through the day. A 3-inch cement pipe, reaching down 10 feet below her kitchen and into a garbage dump brings gas to her. But her happiness could be short-lived. Recent incidents indicate that she and her friends, …
Sulabh International, which has designed and installed over 2,000 public lavatories in slums and resettlement colonies, has just developed a lavatory design that recycles compost to generate biogas for cooking fuel. "We plan to set up 61 such complexes throughout the country," says N D Mazumdar, director (technical research) of …
FARMERS who want to set up a biogas plant but are short of cattle dung -- the primary raw material used by majority of the 12 lakh biogas plants that exist today -- now have an alternative in non-edible oilseeds, which are easily available. Scientists at the Tata Research Development …
IN KEEPING with the global trend, India is trying to popularise the use of alternative energy. One attempt aims at setting up urjagrams (non-conventional energy complexes) during the Eighth Plan. However, efforts over the past decade have failed for various reasons, including the wrong selection of villages, faulty implementation, non-involvement …
PRIME Minister P V Narasimha Rao has approved a plan to restructure the Union ministry of nonconventional energy sources (MNES) to improve efficiency and meet targets. The new structure will also see greater private-sector involvement. MNES is presently structured along technology lines, which result in similar end-use applications being handled …
MILK PRODUCERS in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri district have designed a portable, insulated biogas plant that produces enough gas for three hours of cooking per day. The one cubic metre capacity prototype, developed by the Nilgiri District Cooperative Milk Producer's Union, is a miniature of the now-famous, floating-dome type of biogas …
AN ANSWER to the country's deepening energy crisis could be biogas, which besides being a non-polluting energy source, also provides enriched manure and improves local sanitation and health standards. Biogas consists largely of methane gas and it is produced through the anaerobic fermentation of cattle dung and other organic wastes. …
BIOTECHNOLOGY means a lot of things to different people. The new and the traditional coexist and reinforce each other within biotechnology -- now an established and highly interdisciplinary applied field. However, it symbolises big money, in terms of new industries, agricultural practices, patents and research grants. For scientists and academics, …
