Energy
Security and Efficiency
:
Role of Bio-Gas.
Leena
Mehendale
The
question of energy security has become a major important agenda of
the Government. With far higher cry for rural power, and high
fluctuations in the international crude prices, the search for
alternative fuels has become more urgent.
A
real boost to the solution for energy security however, lies in
efficiency, rather than in higher supply.
This aspect struck me greatly
when recently I had a chance to look at the Integrated Energy Policy
- a document prepared by Planning Commission of India. Let us look at
some of the numbers mentioned therein.
Our annual consumption of
energy is nearly 450 Million Tonnes of Oil Equivalent (Mtoe).
Out of this 110 Mtoe, that is, nearly one fourth,
comes from non-commercial resources and only 340 Mtoe is commercial,
in the form of electric power, Petroleum and Coal. The non-commercial
sources are wood, biomass and cowdung cakes.
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For the urban elite, it is
rather difficult to comprehened that the highest use for domestic
fuel is still wood & cowdung cakes. Out of our 135 Mtoe
domestic fuel, only 5% is clean fuel, namely, LPG and a miniscule of
electricity. Another 15% comes as Kerosene and coal. About 20% is
cowdung cake and nearly 60% is wood. We use annually, 80 Mtoe
of wood and 30 Mtoe of cowdung cake, while Kerosene is nearly 10
Mtoe.
Programs like India Shining or
Bharat Nirman are creating rosy pictures of India becoming world
super power by 2030. This is not possible without energy security.
Our growth rate of economy which is 8% for last 3 years and which we
want to take to double digit will require tremendous amount of energy
inputs by 2030. Our electricity demand will rise from 1.2 L Megawatts
to 4 L Megawatts, However out of our indigenous coal stock of 100000
crore tonnes, only 50,000 crore tonnes is extractable and at an
increasing cost. This whole coal will also be sufficient for
only 30% of our need for electricity generation.
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It is therefore high time that
we relook
at these fuels and also at our methods of burning them. Much higher
burning efficiency can be brought in our methods by spreading proper
education and providing services to the rural areas.
Let
us start with gobar. We use 133 Million tonnes of gobar in rural
areas and 8 Mt. in urban areas totaling to 141 Mt (which is
Equivalent to 30 Mt of oil). The standard method is to make dry
cowdung cakes which are then easy to store or transport if need be
and use them in traditioned
Chulhas for daily cooking. Efficiency of these Chulhas is very
low - only 8%. This means that most of our precious fuel is
wasted - not to speak of resulting smoke, pollution and innumerable
diseases suffered by women folk. Asthama,
bronchitis and eye problems are the most common.
Improving chullha
efficiency can give good dividend. The burning efficiency can
go upto 22%. However converting gobar in usable gobar gas can
increase fuel efficiency upto 50%. Thus the same fuel can
perform 6-7 times better job.
Cost of putting up a domestic
size gobar gas plant of 2 meter cube size comes to nearly Rs.20,000.
In last 40 years programs for subsidized gobar gas plants were taken
in surges when agencies pushed for targets but without any program
for maintenance of the assets which have been created.
Sufficient emphasis was on constructing gobar gas plants - but the
equally important emphasis on creating trained manpower who could
repairs or make improvements was completely missing. When the
plants went into disuse for lack of even minor maintenance, no
attention could be paid to them. The farmer whose family women
were the real beneficiaries was himself not too concerned.
Rather he was reluctant for paying money for repairs and the women
had practically no voice. The food could always be cooked one
way or other.
Today can we learn from these
lessons when we are so concerned for energy sources and
alternatives? Let us re-draft our gobar gas strategies in such
a way where these gaps are taken care of.
Over last 40 years, many
plants were built. Many new techniques have been invented and the
program can be given a push once again. This requires first and
foremost a change in the attitude and priorities of our policy
makers. Our priority cannot be to construct more and more plants -
with or without subsidy - small or big, commercial or
non-commercial. Our priority has to be to create trained
manpower - equipped to work as a service provider at a cheap cost,
when the local gas plant goes into disuse for want of minor repairs.
We need to ensure the ready availability of such a person who can get
for himself an annual maintenance contract. Alongwith
this it is worthwhile to invest once again in major repairs of some
of the revivable plants and a few thosand
totally new plants.
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Very
early in my service I was associated with scheme for gobar gas. In
the years 81-83 when I was CEO in ZP of Aurangabad & Sangli,
the GoI
had launched a massive program for construction of gobar gas. Since
then I have watched the development of various techniques, the good
and not so good aspects of program implementation
On the technical side, the
very early KVIC models used to have floating domes - later
the fixed dome technology came and today we can use both for domestic
sizes. To parry the problem of bad smell, water jacket technology was
used. There were many experiments about dome material. As some
complaints arose that the cement domes developed cracks, people
experimented with fiber – glass and other material and this issue
now stands successfully tackled. Some companies experimented
with pre-fabricated ferro cement plants too. All these designs have
their own success stories for show-casing.
The common digester sizes
started from 2 meter cube for domestic purpose. A farmer having 4
cattle would get sufficient cow-dung for meeting the daily
requirement of gas in his kitchen, for a family of 6-8 members.
In 1986 I visited a farmer who used 20% diesel and 80 % biogas in his
diesel pump for pumping water in the farm. In 1992, I visited the
Anandvan
Justitute of Shri
Baba Amte
where he ran a Leprosy rehab centre. It had around 500 inmates
and 3 gobar gas plants of 35 meter cube each which ran on nightsoil
and cowdung
and
daily supplied enough gas for the entire kitchen activities.
These are some examples of
successful plants. However a large percentage of gobar gas
plants then constructed through Government subsides have gone into
disorder. Some years back TERI conducted a survey which showed
that about 80% of plants went into disorder and disuse.
Today, when the need to
reassess the situation and once again build up the stock of our
assets for renewable resources and revitalize the program, I think we
should focus on those 20% plants which are still being used
successfully.
The action plan can
begin with an experience sharing seminar of those households where
gobar gas plants are still working, and those where the plant failed,
those technical experts who are constructing biogas plants and those
who are in the job of framing policies. Such experience sharing
will tell us about the do’s
and dont’s
of the new program. Another point of action is to start
training rural youth in gas plant maintenance. Yet another action is
to undertake a survey of gobar
gas plants built over last few years and the reasons of their failure
or success. Then, a repairs program needs to be taken up in right
unrest.
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The
question of fire wood is also of crucial importance. The
estimates of IEP state that we burn 180 million tonnes of wood for
domestic fuel. Another estimate states that for all uses put
together, we burn nearly 220 million tonnes of wood and 130 million
tonnes of bio waste thus taking the total to 350 million tonnes.
(Nearly
half for domestic and half for other purpose - mostly industrial).
The efficiency of our
traditional chullhas is very low - nearly 8%. It means when we
burn 100 kg of wood, we get the real value of only 8 kg. The
rest - nearly 12 times of what is burned - goes as waste. Hence
improving our chullhas and small units of traditional bhattis
eg.
gur
bhatti,
is very essential.
Two such experiments are worth
quoting. In Udaypur the KVIC developed a new model of chulhas in
which a pre-tested iron mould is used as a base material. The
dimensions of the mould have been finalized after lot of trial -
errors and improvements. The mud plus cement chullhas are constructed
around this mould and the mould is taken out. It can be used over and
over again upto nearly 15000 chullhas. The chullha so made has
two compartments connected with a pipe and a chimney is also fitted,
which takes the smoke up and away. With this chullha,
the burning efficiency is found to increase upto 22% which means
straight saving of at least 25% of our today’s wood consumption and
consequential environment pollution. The cost of mould is around Rs.
500 while that of chulha
is around Rs.
1500. I was then Executive director of PCRA (Petroleum Conservation
Research Association) and we decided to sponser
this chulha
through an Action Research project. Under this we funded the training
of 5 masons, giving them
moulds and paying them 50% of wages for the chulhas
so constructed. In first phase we sponsored 2000 such chulhas
in Rajasthan. In the 2nd
phase some more have been sponsored. In yet another Action Research
project we sponsored a lab-to-field trials of fuel efficient
Gud-bhattis
developed by Indian Institute of Petroleum. PCRA has very good
technical video films made on these two subjects (and many more
films
relating to energy efficincy).
These can be used seminars and to educate the end user.
In yet another experiment, I
visited a small village Odenthorai
near Coimbtore.
Here, with the leadership of DRDA officials and the village sarpanch,
power generation is done from wood. First the firewood is dried
and chopped to small pieces. They are burned with low oxygen
supply in a small scale gassifier.
Carbon monoxide so produced is filtered with water and taken to burn
alongwith diesel in a diesel motor where it produces electricity. All
the village water pumping is done by using this electricity.
This is a far efficient way of burning wood. This experiment has been
repeated in some neighboring villages who are using excess
electricity for street lights upto 10 pm in the night. Thus the
villages which used to be in the grip of darkness after sunset are
now active and bubbling till 10 pm . With power cuts having
become so common in rural areas, this locally generated electricity
opens up new dimensions of enterprise. A video films
on this is also made by PCRA and is available in our clip-bank.
Sources like solar energy,
wind, bio-diesel
are being talked about a lot. It is high time we also pay
attention to the aspect of fuel saving and efficient burning of
biomass - be it cowdung or wood or farm waste.
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Author
is Principle Secretary, General Administration Department, Govt of
Maharashtra
and Ex Executive Director of Petroleum Conservation Research
Association, Govt. of India.
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