This
special contains 4 reports on gas energy: A
Pat Solution - Nepal, Off Piste - Austria, Plug and
Play - South Africa, Winds of Change - Sri Lanka
A
Pat Solution - Nepal
Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide.
It is produced by the action of bacteria on vegetable/organic
material in airless conditions which is why the process
is also known as 'anaerobic digestion'. The bacteria
slowly digest the material (usually animal dung, human
wastes and crop residues) and produce a gas which
is roughly 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide.
Biogas is an effective fuel for cooking and lighting.
It makes a meaningful contribution to the energy supply
and it saves fossil energy, such as coal, oil and
gas. It also makes a significant ecological contribution
to heat and electricity production. It is an environmentally
friendly source of energy because it produces electricity
and heat but still keeps carbon dioxide emissions
neutral and emits no sulphur. As fossil based fuels
become scarcer and more expensive and carbon dioxide
emission levels become of greater concern, the benefits
and potential of biogas as a source of energy supply
are being increasingly recognised.
Off
Piste - Austria
Biomass refers to biologically derived material of
any kind. It is still the main source of energy for
more than half the world's population for domestic
energy needs. Biomass is available
in varying quantities throughout the world - from
densely forested areas in the temperate and tropical
regions, to sparsely vegetated arid regions where
collecting wood fuel for household needs is a time
consuming and arduous task. More than two million
people in the developing world use biomass for the
majority of their household energy needs. It is used
mainly for cooking, heating water and the household
but it is also used for non-domestic applications.
Solid biomass is the use of trees, plants, crop residues,
animal and human waste, household or industrial residues
for direct combustion to provide heat. Often the solid
biomass will undergo physical processing such as cutting,
chipping, briquetting, etc. but will still retain
its solid form. Crop and industrial biomass residues
are widely used in many countries to provide centralised
processing of heat for electricity production or other
commercial end uses.
Plug
and Play - South Africa
In many parts of the developing world there is no
electricity grid and diesel fuel may be expensive,
of poor quality, or simply not available. Solar energy
is a free and natural source of energy that will never
run out. Solar photovoltaic systems convert sunlight
directly into electricity. The photovoltaic cells
are manufactured from silicon and assembled into modules
that can be installed in a variety of ways to capture
the sun's power and meet energy needs.
Solar power is an attractive energy technology because
photovoltaic modules produce no pollution, have an
expected life of twenty years and require little maintenance.
Furthermore, they are now technically proven, commercially
available and economically viable. Small off grid
photovoltaic systems of less than a few kilowatts
are ideally suited to the conditions that prevail
in the rural areas of many parts of the world.
Winds
of Change - Sri Lanka
Wind energy offers the potential to generate substantial
amounts of electricity without the pollution problems
of most conventional forms of electricity generation.
The equipment used for wind energy technology is being
continually improved to make it cheaper and more reliable.
It is therefore expected that wind energy will become
even more economically competitive over the coming
decades.
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