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Dungbusters – Nepal
How many benefits can a biogas stove provide? In Nepal, as well as reducing pressure on forestry resources, these stoves are changing lives in many ways – improving sanitation and health, giving people time to pursue other activities, and improving crop yields.
Impact of Biogas Stoves
Despite improvements in Nepal’s economy in the 1990s, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Its main environmental challenge is on the sustainable use of natural resources. The domestic sector accounts for 95 per cent of Nepal’s total energy use, mostly for cooking and heating. This demand is met through the combustion of firewood (75 per cent) and agricultural residues and dung (20 per cent). This high demand for firewood has depleted forestry reserves, resulting in problems such as soil degradation, erosion, landslides and flooding. Despite moves to promote community forestry management, the heavy dependence on fuelwood and increasing population growth continues to put pressure on local forests.
| Ghimire's family in Chapagaun, just outside Nepal's capital Kathmandu, has been using biogas stoves to cook two meals every day for the last three years. To cook rice, lentils and vegetables for her family of seven, "I used to spend all day looking for firewood and cleaning pots and pans," says Ghimire. "Those days are now gone!" When her neighbours saw Ghimire had more time for other chores, they were encouraged to install their own biogas plants. |
Biogas technology is simple, reliable and accessible and uses appropriate technology in terms of social, economical and geographical conditions in Nepal. In addition to providing a cost efficient energy source, biogas provides other benefits, such as:
- Convenience: the fuel comes from families’ own animals – a couple of cows provide enough dung to feed the digester.
- Improved sanitation, as some digesters are connected to toilets.
- Reduced time required to collect firewood, which was 2-3 hours a day. This now frees up families for other activities.
- The easy-to-use smokeless stove reduces the amount of indoor air pollution.
- Use of the by-product, digested slurry, to fertilise the soil improves crop yields.
Technology
Today there are 140,000 rural Nepali households who cook with biogas. The biogas plants of Nepal have helped save 400,000 tonnes of firewood and 800,000 litres of kerosene, as well as preventing 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from escaping into the atmosphere.
The technology of the plant itself is quite simple: cow dung goes in, gas comes out. Some systems are also connected to the toilet, improving sanitation and boosting gas production. The Nepali biogas plant design uses an airtight underground digester, where dung is put in and then stirred with some water. In Nepal, a fixed dome design, the GGC 2047 model, is popular.
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| Constructing the Digestion Chamber |
This model was designed and developed in Nepal. It is considered to be reliable, well functioning, simple, low maintenance cost and durable. Within the dome, bacteria that occur naturally in cow dung break down the raw materials to produce methane. The reaction in the biogas plant takes place in the absence of oxygen and the gas contains up to 70 per cent methane and 30 per cent carbon dioxide.
At the top of the dome there is a gas outlet pipe that is connected to the cooker. Once the gas is produced, the remaining matter comes out as slurry, which can be used as organic fertiliser.
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| The dome will be covered with compacted earth |
A plant suitable for a rural household costs US$300 (£167). Government subsidies have made the plants more affordable for households, bringing the cost down to $200, which can be recouped by savings in fuel costs within three years.
Support Programme
The success of Nepal's biogas programme can be attributed to strict quality control. One organisation, Biogas Support Program – Nepal (BSP Nepal), controls biogas developments in the country, using local people and local financial institutions.
"Everyone is involved and they all have a sense of ownership that has generated sustainability and success of the project," says Sundar Bajgain, executive director.
BSP Nepal's core functions are as follows:
- Operational planning and management in the biogas sector.
- Capacity strengthening of biogas institutions.
- Assisting national agencies to formulate biogas policies and plans.
- Advocating for biogas along with other alternative energy planning.
- Supporting Research & Development (R&D) to optimise plant operation.
- Implementing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the biogas sector in Nepal.
- Integrating biogas with other sources of energy.
- Implementing a bio-slurry programme.
- Acting as a data bank and information pool on biogas, construction and maintenance.
- Ensuring proper administration of biogas subsidies.
- Mobilising resources for biogas loan through credit institutions.
- Making quality audits to ensure the quality of biogas plants, developing biogas quality standards and maintaining ISO 9001-2000 quality system.
BSP Nepal has extended its work to 66 of the nation's 75 districts and plans to have 200,000 biogas plants installed by 2009. The programme is currently into Phase IV of the biogas programme that aims to:
- Reduce the workload of 190,000 households, mainly women and girls.
- Create annual savings due to the non-burning of:
- Fuelwood, to the extent of 380,000 tonnes
- Agricultural waste, to the extent of 66,500 tonnes
- Dung cake, to the extent of 114,000 tonnes.
- Annual saving of kerosene of 4.75 million litres.
- Annual reduction of CO 2 emissions to the extent of 890,000 tonnes.
- Annual production of 332,500 tonnes (dry weight) of bio-compost.
- Improving of rural sanitation by connecting toilets to biogas plants for 95,000 households.
- Generating employment for 20,000 people.
Carbon Trading
When the Kyoto Protocol – the global climate treaty – came into force for Nepal in December 2005, the country became eligible to start Emission Reductions (ER) trading.
By using biogas Nepal is saving 700,000 tonnes of CO2, which could earn the country up to $3.5 million per year through the Clean Development Mechanism, which was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The industrialised nations can buy such credits to compensate for the extra greenhouse gases they produce over the allowances set by the Protocol.
The sale of 1,000,000 ER credits to the Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) will allow for the full implementation of Phase IV, and will reduce reliance on donor assistance for future phases of the programme.
Bikash Pandey, Nepal Director of Winrock International, which has been assisting the Biogas Support Program in developing the biogas project into a Clean Development Mechanism project, says that biogas has tremendous local benefits, ranging from decrease in indoor smoke to reduction in work load of rural women and children. "The payment for reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases generates enough revenue to provide the local benefits for free."
The Future
Recently the Biogas Support Program was awarded a £30,000 (US$54,000) Ashden Award for demonstrating how domestic biogas for cooking and sanitation can be implemented on a massive scale: this 'Outstanding achievement in using sustainable energy improves the quality of life and protects the environment'.
The programme is planning to use the award money in high altitude biogas research. "With the money from the award, we are looking to install biogas plants in 400 more households in areas of Nepal where water is scarce," says Sundar Bajgain, the executive director.
Aiming to reach more rural poor, BSP Nepal will expand the networking with other organisations in grassroots level. BSP Nepal is interested to work with other organisations in the following areas:
- Sanitation programme, especially toilets promotion linked with biogas.
- Income-generating activities using the organic fertiliser in crop and vegetable production.
- Reduction of workload and hardship of rural women.
- Improvement of environment, especially on protection of national forest.
- Livestock management and fodder trees plantation linking with biogas.
- Strengthening micro-credit institutions for effective lending on biogas. Integrating rainwater harvesting with biogas systems.
Acknowledgements
Hands On would like to thank Sundar Bajgain for his help in putting together this case study.
Further Information
Participating Organisations
BSP – Nepal
Bakhundole, Lalitpur,Nepal
P.O. Box 9751, Kathmandu
Tel: +977 1 5529840/ 5524665
Fax: +977 1 5524755
E-mail: bspnepal@wlink.com.np
Website: http://www.bspnepal.org.np/introduction.htm
Resources
Ashden Awards
The Ashden Awards reward outstanding, inspirational and innovative local sustainable energy schemes that both protect the environment, tackle climate change and make real improvements to people's quality of life. They are designed to encourage wider take-up of local energy solutions worldwide - proving to the public and policy makers alike that such schemes offer viable, practical ways of tackling poverty, resource shortages and climate change.
Website: http://www.ashdenawards.org/
Resources
Practical Action Technical Information Service
Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development
Bourton Hall
Bourton-on-Dunsmore
Warwickshire CV23 9QZ
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1926 634462
Fax: +44 (0)1926 634401
Website: http://www.practicalaction.org/?id=technical_
information_service
ITDG Publishing
Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development
Bourton Hall
Bourton-on-Dunsmore
Warwickshire CV23 9QZ
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1926 634501
Fax: +44 (0)1926 634502
E-mail: marketing@itpubs.org.uk
Website: www.itdgpublishing.org
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