Biogas- CASE STUDY

Development Bottom Up Case Study

what group created biogas

• ASTRA (Application of Science and Technology in Rural Areas); an NGO

• group of researchers from Bangalore who visited rural towns and areas in India and asked local people about their problems

where is the project located

across many parts of rural India, where ASTRA able to reach and show their project

what problem is biogas trying to fix

• ASTRA found that in daily life, women and girls spend lots of their time doing chores such as cleaning and collecting fuel, firewood, tending to cows and vegetable patch and preparing and cooking food

• takes up a lot of time, in which young girls could be going to school and learning, and women could be working

• this decreases India’s literacy rate and therefore the amount of people able to get jobs to improve India’s development

• most girls in rural India do not complete primary school education

• rural families aren’t able to earn a bigger income as women cannot have jobs due to daily tasks they have to complete

• firewood produces lots of smoke and ash which can damage lungs and worsen lung health and breathing

• so much is required per family per week, having v negative impact on India’s forests and deforestation

what does biogas use and what does it do

• comes from cow dong, commonly found as families have sacred cows

• gas produced from this cow dung can then be used to power stoves to cook with and power generators

steps to collect and use the biogas

1. dung fed into a brick/clay/concrete lined pit, sealed off by a metal dome

2. then allows the dung to ferment, producing methane

3. in the sealed off dome, pressure begins to build, and then is released and pumped into homes as fuel

benefits of biogas

• cooking takes much less time as heat instant

• reduced time women spend on daily chores

• less cleaning as the gas doesn’t produce ash

• easy dung collection; cattle now kept in family compound instead of woodland where they would graze and eat saplings, which would prevent new tree growth

• richer dung to be used as fertiliser as cow dung ferments to produce biogas, this fermentation process also develops more nutritious and richer dung to be used on plants and crops to help grow healthier plants at a faster rate

• increases India’s development as girls and women can now get an education/get paid for work

• more crops

• cheap too produce and uses intermediate tech for easy building and managing

• regular people can set it up, run it and fix it if needed

problems with biogas

• only suitable for rural and suburban areas as large and constant supply of cow dung needed and space needed

• not as big of an impact as only in small specific areas

• only small scale; haven’t been technological advancements yet that allow for biogas chambers that could supply larger pops

• only suitable for stoves, water boilers, generators and laps as biogas contains impurities, meaning if it were used to power something like a car, the metal parts would corrode

positive social impacts of biogas

• women able to get jobs, allowing rural families to have higher incomes

• girls able to go to school and get an education, giving them more opportunities and increasing overall literacy rates and development in India

• lower disease rates as less people getting sic from microorganisms in cow dung as fermentation kills them

• gas being used instead of firewood, no smoke produced, less lung infections

positive economic impacts

• higher crop yield- farmers get three crops of vegetables a year using irrigation which is powered by biogas generators

• reduces fertiliser costs

• more women able to receive education, meaning they are given more opportunities that can help improve the economy

• no loans taken out by gov for this so cheap

positive environmental impacts of biogas

• renewable source of energy

• trees aren’t being cut down constantly to provide firewood

• cows aren’t eating tree saplings, meaning more forest growth

• animals keep their habitats as trees aren’t being chopped down