Ms. Ayesha Latif, Green Blogger, Dept. of Environmental sciences, GCWUS
Currently, Pakistan is facing the major problems of, energy crises and increasing amount of waste and pollution level. Especially the rural areas are facing the extreme fuel shortages because the pressure of population has reduced the forests of Pakistan. To compensate their need of energy, many rural areas burn animal manure and dung waste openly, which causes odour and health issues.
Biogas plants are a good solution to rural communities. Biogas is a gas produced by anaerobic fermentation of different forms of organic matter. Typical feedstocks for biogas production are manure and sewage, residues of crop production, the organic fraction of the waste from household and industries, as well as energy crops including maize and sugar beet.
According to an estimate, there are 120 million herds of livestocks in Pakistan and 68% of our population lives in rural areas. Main dependency of rural areas is on their livestocks. Therefore, by using the manure of livestocks, rural communities could meet their needs of energy. They could directly use methane obtains from plant for cooking and heating purposes.
Pakistan is an Agricultural country. According to a research, it generates 43million tons of Agricultural waste annually, of which around 11 million waste remain unutilized. It can be collected and utilized better in the form of biogas.
Biogas installation is very simple and easier. The process itself occurs in airtight biogas digester in the absence of oxygen and temperature remains round about 30-40. The digester time duration varies from several hours to several weeks depending upon the nature of feedstock
Main components of biogas plants are liquid manure store, receiving area, the digester and the gas storage. Firstly, receiving area receives the feedstock and then mixes it with water in liquid manure store and when process ends up gas collects in gas storage, and all this process occur in a digester. Biogas digester has different sizes. Small and medium size used for cooking, heating and lighting purposes. While large digesters produce this gas in large quantities and can be used for peter engines, bakers, hotels and generators for power generation.
Biogas plants have plenty of benefits. It is environmental friendly, reliable and cheap. It is a best substitute of landfill gas, which is more expensive. It reduces the greenhouse gases globally, amount of waste, pollution level and our dependency on fossil fuels.
Biogas is extensively used in India and China. In China, currently 5000000 households are using this technology. If we estimate the cost of domestic biogas plant, it is not more than Pakistan’s 95 thousands rupees and a plant at domestic level can produce 10-20 cubic meter natural biogas in day.
Its implementation is not world widely, due to the lake of information about the possibility of biogas, lack of trained labour force, high capital cost for setting up of commercial plant and the biggest one is that government do not set any policies about this.
Ayesha Latif
Dept. of environmental sciences
The Earth Needs Love