Read the article on Bio-GAS

Why Pay for Gas When You Can Get it Free

Introduction
Today oil prices in are soaring and recently barrel of crude oil hit its highest USD 88.
Sri Lanka being a non oil producing country has a major impact on it’s economy as well as on the lives of it’s people due to the soaring petroleum prices.
In this context , a group of students who are reading for MBA at University of Colombo, (2005/2007 batch), has been looking for viable renewable energy sources available in the country. The students have set up a team named “Go Green” for promoting renewable energy sources that could be utilized in Sri Lanka and also to make awareness among public about cheap renewable energy sources.

Renewable Energy

There are many types of renewable energy sources effectively used in today’s world. Some of them are Ethanol or Green petrol, Bio Diesel and Bio Gas. In the case of ethanol, Brazil is leading in the world and produces Ethanol at the lowest cost as much as USD 0.88 per gallon. Brazil is a large scale sugar producer and they use sugar to produce their ethanol. Unfortunately Sri Lanka is a net importer of sugar and major portion of sugar for consumption is importing. The technology to produce ethanol that could be used as an alternative to petrol is not available in Sri Lanka. Hence, group realized that production of ethanol is not a viable option.
Production of bio diesel too is not a suitable option due to the high cost involved in the production process.

After extensive research, group found that bio gas is a cheap energy source that could be easily produce in Sri Lanka.

Introduction: What is bio gas
People have been burning garbage for a long time, until recent technology and new systems became available, it was generally a bad idea. Open-pit trash burning gave way to municipal solid waste incinerators and so-called “waste-to-energy” facilities, but all of them involved the burning of general household, industrial, and even medical garbage – spewing toxic chemicals like dioxins into the air.
Biomass gasification and anaerobic digesters are a totally different way of turning waste materials into fuels for energy – and with state-of-the-art pollution control devices, they are almost completely clean and renewable sources of electricity.
A biomass gasification facility turns plant biomass, including yard and garden waste, vegetable scraps, recycled paper, agricultural waste, and wood refuse from construction, into a pressurized gas mixture.
There is still research being conducted to improve biomass gasification, as there are still some drawbacks with the process. Hydrogen can be removed and stored for use in hydrogen fuel cells. Biomass gasification does produce some carbon dioxide, although because it is from a renewable organic source it has a short atmospheric residence time and therefore does not contribute to global warming.
Overall, biomass combustion provides a renewable, steady, gap-free flow of electricity to the power grid.

The Process

Biogas is generated when bacteria degrade biological material in the absence of oxygen, in a process known as anaerobic digestion. Since biogas is a mixture of methane (also known as marsh gas or natural gas, CH4) and carbon dioxide, it is a renewable fuel produced from waste treatment.
Anaerobic digestion is basically a simple process carried out in a number of steps that can use almost any organic material as a substrate - it occurs in digestive systems, marshes, rubbish dumps and septic tanks.
Humans tend to make the process as complicated as possible by trying to improve on nature in complex machines but a simple approach is still possible.
Conventional anaerobic digestion has been a "liquid" process, where waste is mixed with water to facilitate digestion, but a "solid" process is also possible, as occurs in landfill sites.
As methane is very hard to compress, it is best use as for stationary fuel, rather than mobile fuel. It takes a lot of energy to compress the gas (this energy is usually just wasted), plus the hazard of high pressure. A variable volume storage is much easier and cheaper to arrange than high pressure cylinders, regulators and compressors.


Why bio gas

The poor usage of natural resources is taking us to the destruction of the planet. Deforestation, high levels of carbon dioxide generated by forest fires, pollution caused by vehicle, industries, and other factors, are causing a global warming effect at an accelerated pace. In this sense, high poverty rates contribute to this phenomenon. Currently, many options have come about to substitute wood as a source of fuel, as gas and electricity have increasingly higher costs. Solar cooker have requirements in their usage and don't work on rainy days. An alternative that is being used more and more often is the anaerobic methane digester.
Biogas is best used directly for cooking/heating, and for lighting .

There are many advantages of biogas over wood as a cooking fuel

Easy availability than using firewood
Trees can be retained
Biogas is a quick, easily controlled fuel
No smoke or smell (unless there is a leak - then you need to know anyway!)
Clean pots
Sludge is a better fertiliser than manure or synthetic fertilisers (and is cheaper than anufactured products)
Reduced pathogen transmission compared to untreated waste

Bio gas Sri Lankan context

Sri Lankans uses various types of energy sources to satisfy their energy needs.
The main areas that energy is used are transportation, cooking ,lighting and machine running. For these purposes, we use Biomass, Electricity, Petroleum oil and LP Gas. Nearly 70% of the Sri Lankan population lives in rural areas. Most of them have no access to grid electricity. Most of them use biomass for their cooking purposes and finding of firewood is not a problem for them. However, majority of them use kerosene oil lamps for their lighting purposes and that affects considerable amount of their income since kerosene is expensive. Whereas, in urban population, although grid electricity is available people spent considerable amount of their income on cooking fuel mainly on LP Gas.

Therefore, it was identified by our research that bio gas could be well promoted as a energy source in the following areas.

1) As a energy source for lighting in rural areas.
2) As a energy source for cooking in urban areas.

Use in rural areas

Sri Lanka’s economy is still largely based on agriculture, which accountable for 70% of the population. Most of farmers engage in animal raising, and related activities.
After harvesting, straw is burnt out and animal waste are dump far away from their sheds without using for any productive purpose. All these material are abundant in rural areas and these could be utilized to produce bio gas. The farmers spend large amount of money on fertilizer too. Although, presently fertilizer is heavily subsidized, tax payers bear major portion of the fertilizer bill. Very big advantage is that , the remains of waste material and animal waste after using to produce bio gas can be used as a fertilizer.
Once these waste is dried, they are well ahead than chemical fertilizers in all spheres.
10 tones of degraded waste could fulfilled the need of fertilizer for 10 hectares of farm land. The economic benefit of having a bio gas unit in rural area is two fold ‘
One is the savings on kerosene oil used for lighting oil lamps and the other is the savings on the part of fertilizer. Apart from these, time used to collect firewood and time on disposing straw and animal waste etc. could be saved.


Uses in urban area

Today, solid waste is collected and disposed at a large number of unprotected sites in populated cities such as Colombo, Dehiwala-Mt. Lavinia, Moratuwa, Kandy, Galle, etc. Even in remote areas, solid waste dumps have become a common sight. It is estimated that Colombo municipal area produces about 850 metric tones daily and the figure for the whole metropolitan area exceeds 1,100 – 1,200 MT/day. These waste disposal sites create unhealthy and unhygienic environment. Around 75% of this waste could be utilised as bio degradable material to produce bio gas.

The urban population mainly uses LP Gas and electricity for their cooking. A unit of bio gas could address both the disposal of waste as well as energy needs of cooking in urban population. If money spent on disposing waste by municipal councils channels to promote and establish bio gas units in urban house holds, it will not only address the economic problems but also the environmental problems.


The pioneer research organization in Sri Lanka in researching on bio gas is NERD;
National Engineering Research and Development Centre

Also there are several prominent NGOs which have been contributed immensely in the mission of promoting bio gas technology to rural and urban Sri Lanka, such as USAID, Practical Action, etc.

Department of Animal Production and Health is one of the government contributor to the industry, while several Universities, Ruhuna, Peradeniya etc, from the researching front.

Success stories
Gampaha PIYARA BAKERS
Kottawa Weerasiri Café

Role as Facilitators
Team GO GREEN @ Colombo has formulated its strategies to act as a facilitator to share the available knowledge among interest groups and communities.
We have very special interest to promote bio gas technology among urban communities in their energy needs for cooking, while minimising impact to the environment in waste water management.
The team is working forward under the supervision and guidance of Dr P S M Gunerate, Dean, Management Faculty and Dr Sunil Jayantha Nawarate, who inspired the students on strategic management in Sri Lankan context, University of Colombo.
You may email us on : gogreen2007@googlegroups.com/ wegogreen@gmail.com

Team Go Green

We are a group of students who are reading for MBA at University of Colombo, (2005/2007 batch).
We have set up a team called “Go Green” to search for viable renewable energy sources available in the country.
We are here to promote renewable energy, that could be utilized in Sri Lanka, and also to make awareness among public about cheap renewable energy againt the fossil fuel .

We sincerely hope that all of you too would join us for this humble task.