Gas After Drinking Soda

Millenovecentoottantanove

Simon Lord

Ershad Ali, a farmer, the small village of Tikuria, in ' upazila (the basic level Bangladesh Public Administration) of Haluaghat in northern Bangladesh. As 70% of his countrymen, is not equipped with electricity, forced to meet its energy needs by kerosene lamps and stoves, so as hazardous pollutants. Like many in his village, however, Mr. Ali has a great resource: a mini-herd of six cows on pasture.

So it is sufficient to Grameen Shakti (literally "Energy Village") to ensure that as many Bangladeshi Ershad a loan of 30,000 taka (just over € 290, repayable at an annual interest rate of 5.8%) to build a biogas plant, technically biodigester said: you dig a tank of variable width and depth, supported by a lattice structure made of wood, from which a radial plastic pipe, and finally, cover everything with a tarp. The pit is then filled on a regular basis with a mixture of manure and water.

Moha MMED Delawar Hossain, who worked for Grameen Shakti, said: "When we design a new facility, we take into account both the available resources that the size of the household: for example a family of five or six individuals enough a cavity of 1.2 cubic meters if the individuals are from 8 to 10 opt for a hole of 1.4 cubic meters ". "Although at first the system only includes the use of cattle manure, we later discovered that the addition of poultry manure increased the yield of the plants. So the owner receives not only enough gas to cook three times a day, but manages to earn 2,500 taka by selling the amount of gas in excess to their communities, "says also connects Fazley Rabbi.

Grameen Shakti, which has already astonished the world with his campaign to install solar cream he low-cost (to date more than 100,000 plants across the country), is part of the family Grameen company, which builds on the revolutionary success of the system of micro-credit (thanks to the vision of Muhammad Yunus), has now expanded into 25 different areas, which include, in addition to energy, including education and health. Moreover, the process implemented by the energy company Bengali could be accelerated by a grant coming from the World Bank, which has pledged $ 9 for every reduction of one tonne of CO2 emissions. This should help non-profit society to become economically self-sufficient, partly due to a return to that already obtained from the sale of its solar panel systems, in which the market is still the undisputed leader.

are currently present in Bangladesh, more than 30,000 biodigester plants, but the horizon is the most optimistic lot far, estimated at 4 million potential installations around the country. Tikuria is among the best performing villages in this sense, with no less than 50 biogas plants, so that the largest funder of environmental projects, the ' Infra-structure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL) recently decorated the plate "Biogas Village , in accordance with their specific standards. Now 40% of the population in the village receives energy through the system, reducing damage to the eyes and respiratory tract from the combustion of kerosene and at the same time reducing the risk of contracting infectious diseases.

"It is the dream of all the alchemists" says the student of economics and Bengali bloggers Benjamin "they always try to turn lead into gold, while showing some ignorance of monetary policy (that is, a world of gold is only a world in which the value of that disappears)! Certainly that would be very seduced by the idea of \u200b\u200btransforming something common and useless a valuable resource like energy. "

The system introduced by Grameen Shakti is also very valuable from a social perspective, since it is based, such as micro-credit, on the cooperation of small to medium groups of families, that to overcome the limit costs decide to engage the private financial resources for a common purpose and benefit, creating what would venture to establish a social network energy. The maintenance service is also composed entirely of female staff trained: this avoids the stalemate on the ground that the local culture does not allow women (who usually are the only present for intervention) to interact directly with the technicians males, except in the presence of her husband.

short, Grameen Shakti is to be a small revolution, which will help the poor to be a bit 'less and at the same time make the world a less polluted. Thus it is important to the company the recognition of Yunus's recent ceremony Ashden Awards (held in London in summer 2008) for the "outstanding result" .

References:

The Financial Express - Biogas dreams up fires in rural Bangladesh http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/05/30/68188.html
Benjamin In Bangladesh! – Grameen Shakti http://learnfromthepoor.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/grameen-shakti/
Studyunus.net - Grameen Shakti wins green energy award http://studyunus.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/grameen-shakti-wins-green-energy-award/
PBS Broadcast – Energy e2 http://www.pbs.org/e2/episodes/202_energy_developing_world_trailer.html