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Energy and FuelWhile electricity is now widely available - apart from the notorious powercuts - it also burdens the consumer with high electricity bills. Cooking, pumping water for crop irrigation and vehicles also need fuel and are causing considerable expenditures. Cooking is traditionally done on open fires with firewood or - in its absence -with dried cowdung as fuel. The smoke from this open fires give the food an agreeable distinguishing flavour, but is also hazardous to the cook's health. A further common means to cook is the kerosene stove and kerosene is available from the government for every holder of a ration card. As sourcing and handling of wood, cow dung and kerosene are requiring quite an effort, the gas stove has become quite popular. Gas is purchased in bottles on a deposit/refill base and a filling lasts for some time, gas fires produce no smoke and the heat of the stove is easily adjustable to the cooking requirements. The downside is the price for gas, what moved some farmers to use their cattle's dung to produce their own supply of biogas. The biogas reactor is a simple construction and can be built by a specialized mason. A government scheme is fostering its implementation. However to run it smoothly, it has to be fed daily with a minimal amount of dung/biomass. In the front you see the mixing unit, where cowdung is mixed to consistency with water from the tank on the right. a shutter is then opened to let it flow through an inlet (left to the mixer) into the underground digester. The gas pressure is pushing the used matter out into a storage tank (in the background) The switch to biogas as a cooking medium is certainly a good thing as it is cheap, needs no transportation, does not produce smoke, it saves trees from being felled and it does not attract flies, which can really bother a village where cowdung is dried for fuel. A prerequisite to use this source of energy however is the availability of a sufficient number of cattle or other sources of biomass. This issue deserves some further evaluation as it's application has a great potential for a small village. Diesel, which is used in the loud and smoky engines for pumping water is very expensive and reduces a farmers income drastically. A day of pumping water for a medium sized field produces costs for diesel of about INR 200/- to 300/- (approx. 5 - 8 USD) and adds up to around one third of the total crop revenue. Operating these pumps also creates an environmental risk as it requires handling of diesel in close proximity to waterways and wells.  The cost for diesel could be greatly reduced by deriving it from the jatropha plant (see section 'income') cultivated on the farmers own land. There are micro refineries available that allow the conversion of the plantoil into quality bio diesel. It is a relatively simple process that can be applied to small batches. The derived diesel is not only cheaper, but also far more environmental friendly than fossil diesel. A further good alternative to the noisy, heavy and smoky diesel engines could be their substitution with solar pumps. Such a pump is based on a low temperature sterling engine and runs on solar heat alone. top
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