Interlinked Climate & Energy Challenges

2007June21: From Ashden Awards, “India: BIOTECH has succeeded in tackling the problem of the dumping of food waste in the streets of Kerala through the installation of biogas plants that use the food waste to produce gas for cooking and, in some cases, electricity for lighting; the residue serves as a fertiliser. To date BIOTECH has built and installed an impressive 12,000 domestic plants (160 of which also use human waste from latrines to avoid contamination of ground water), 220 institutional plants and 17 municipal plants that use waste from markets to power generators. The disposal of food waste and the production of clean energy are not the only benefits of BIOTECH’s scheme. The plants also replace the equivalent of about 3.7 tonnes/day of LPG and diesel which in turn results in the saving of about 3,700 tonnes/year of CO2, with further savings from the reduction in methane production as a result of the uncontrolled decomposition of waste, and from the transport of LPG” (Ashden Awards, 2007). The program won a 2007 Ashden Award. The Ashden Awards promote local sustainable energy solutions in the UK and the developing world.

Reference: Ashden Awards. 2007. http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/biotech?t=aa

Image Description: Biogas plant supplied by Biotech at Panavila Muslim Working Women’s Hostel, Trivandrum. Image Location: Ashden Awards. http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/biotech?t=aa Image Permission: This work is copyrighted and unlicensed. However, it is believed that the use of this work to illustrate the subject in question, Where no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information, on Interlinked Challenges, hosted on servers in the United States by Michigan State University, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.