Idea 422 of 500. Cluster 21: Energy, water and waste at small scale
Biomass pellets from the coconut and rice husks for the tea factories' driers
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
Every idea in cluster 21 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Visit the managers of two tea factories and ask what fuel their driers burn now, how much they use each month and what they pay per tonne. Then ask the owners of the nearest rice mill and coconut mill what they do with their husks and shells. The proof is a named price from a factory, and a husk supply you can secure below it.
- Who pays first
- A tea factory manager who buys firewood or fuel for the driers every month and wants a steady, cheaper supply that burns evenly.
- What leaves today
- Husks are burned in the open or dumped while factories buy fuel; pellets turn a farm waste into the heat that dries a product the island exports.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FourteenThe List
Energy: first, stop importing it
More from cluster 21
- 411Rooftop solar leasing for households, paid from the electricity bill
- 412Solar-powered cold rooms for the fishing harbours and the farms
- 413Biogas plants for the dairy and pig farms, with the gas sold locally
- 414Rainwater-harvesting installation for the dry-zone villages and the hotels
- 415Waste-collection and recycling businesses in the tourist towns, paid by the businesses they serve
- 416Composting of hotel and market waste into a branded soil product
Idea 422 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.