Starter Kit. Idea 413 of 500. Cluster 21
Biogas plants for the dairy and pig farms, with the gas sold locally
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
The first step
Visit five dairy or pig farms within a few kilometres of each other and ask each owner what happens to the manure now and what they spend each month on gas cylinders or firewood. Then ask the nearest bakery, eating house or guesthouse whether they would buy gas from a farm next door at a lower price. The proof is one farmer willing to host a plant and one buyer for the gas.
- Who pays first
- A farm owner who pays to get rid of manure and buys fuel for the kitchen, and would rather turn one problem into the answer to the other.
- What leaves today
- Cooking gas is imported and farm waste is dumped; a biogas plant replaces an import with a fuel made from what the farm already throws away.
Ask first
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask what approvals a farm biogas plant needs.
- Sustainable Energy Authority. Ask whether support exists for biogas on farms.
Check before you spend
Environmental approval for the plant, safe gas handling and storage, and whether selling gas to neighbours needs any permission.
Find out these three numbers
- What do farms spend monthly on gas or firewood?
- Would a nearby business buy gas at a lower price?
- What does a farm-sized plant cost?
A comparison from the book
Denmark's creameries. Chapter Eleven
"And because the supply was guaranteed, the creameries could borrow to build."
Secure the manure and the gas buyer by contract first; then the plant can be financed.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.