Dutch stop subsidising heat generation by burning wood chips

 DutchNews, April 23, 2022 

Ministers have agreed to immediately stop giving subsidies for the use of biomass, or wood chips, to generate heat for city heating schemes and greenhouses, the economic affairs ministry has confirmed. 

Dutch biomass plants, which are supposed to help comply with EU climate goals, have been given billions of euros in subsidies in the last few years. They have, however, become deeply controversial because of longer-term damage to the environment. 

‘Organic raw materials play an important role in achieving a climate-neutral and circular economy,’ climate minister Rob Jetten said in a statement. ‘They are also crucial in becoming less dependent on fossil fuels… at the same time, the government is aware of the concerns.’ 

The government, he said, would approve the use of sustainable bio-based raw materials where they make the greatest contribution to sustainability and where alternatives are limited. 

This includes bioconcrete, paint based on bio-based raw, green gas as a replacement for natural gas, or as a fuel for heavy road transport, aviation and maritime shipping. 

Pollution 

In July 2020, the Dutch government’s senior advisory body SER recommended that subsidies for the use of biomass in power stations be phased out quickly. 

However, the Dutch environmental assessment agency PBL says the use of biomass may be unavoidable if the Netherlands is to meet the EU targets. 

Without using biomass, the Netherlands will have to install wind turbines and solar panels more quickly than it is currently doing, and other difficult choices will have to be made, the PBL said. 

The use of biomass, such as wood chips, as a fuel generated an extra 19 megatons in carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, according to calculations by national statistics agency CBS. 

The Netherlands has also been under fire for importing wood chips from the US and the Baltic states to burn in power plants.

Dutch to phase out subsidies for wood-fired power stations

DutchNews, October 19, 2020 

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The government is planning to phase out the use of subsidies for power stations which are powered by biomass, or which generate heat for city heating schemes. 

Biomass is predominantly made up of wood chips and vegetable and fruit waste, but has come under fire as a source of fuel because of both high levels of carbon emissions and the over-use of wood, some of which is imported from the US. 

The agreement decision to phase out the use of subsidies was taken at Friday’s cabinet meeting because there are, ministers agree, enough greener alternatives for generating both electricity and heat. This would be on condition the alternatives are both achievable and affordable, economic affairs minister Eric Wiebes has told MPs in a briefing. 

The government will decide when subsidies should be phased out by the end of the year and has asked the environmental assessment agency PBL for its recommendations. 

The PBL had said in January that the use of biomass may be unavoidable if the Netherlands is to meet the EU targets on energy neutrality.  Without using biomass, the Netherlands will have to install wind turbines and solar panels more quickly than it is currently doing, and other difficult choices will have to be made, the PBL said. 

In total, 628 biomass installations in the Netherlands will get some €11.4bn in subsidies over the next few years, the AD reported earlier. 

Vattenfall 

In June, Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall said it had decided to postpone plans to build the Netherlands’ biggest biomass fired power station because of the ongoing discussion about how green biomass actually is. 

The plant was to be built in Diemen on the outskirts of Amsterdam, but both locals and the town council have major doubts about the project. 

The first step in finalising the decision involves the Dutch government giving clarity about its plans and the role of biomass in reaching climate change targets, the company said. 

The government’s advisory body SER has also recommended that subsidies for biomass power be phased out. 

Despite the subsidy decision, the government ‘remains convinced that the use of biomass is necessary in the transition to a climate neutral and circular economy by 2030 and 2050.’

Dutch firm to recycle babies’ nappies to produce sustainable energy

DutchNews, September 18, 2018 

Waste processing plant ARN is building a separate facility for recycling babies’ nappies in an initiative supported by 8 local councils in the Nijmegen region. 

Babies use around 5,000 nappies until they are potty trained, with half a million nappy wearing children each year, sustainability advisor Milieu Centraal has calculated. More elderly are people are using incontinence pads as well. 

The process involves placing the nappies in a reactor which reaches temperature of up to 250 degrees at high pressure. ‘The nappies, including their contents of urine and faecal matter, become liquid and separate into different materials,’ process developer and patent holder Willem Elsinga told broadcaster NOS. 

‘The high temperature gets rid of the bacteria, traces of medication and viruses so all the products we make from the diapers will be safe. Otherwise we couldn’t sell them,’ the broadcaster quotes him as saying. 

The plant will turn the diapers into four products: green gas, plastics, fertiliser and biomass, which Elsinga says, can be used as an alternative for coal to fire coal plants. 

An earlier initiative to recycle diapers in Arnhem ten years ago failed. According to Elsinga that experiment came too early. ‘Everything has to be right: enough diapers, affordable technology and a market that is ready for the products at the end of the line.’ 

But now local councils are trying to reduce the amount of left-over waste after traditional glass, paper and plastics recycling. ‘We are producing between 150 and 200 kilos of residual waste per head of the population and local councils are keen on separate waste collection. This sort of thing fits in perfectly,’ Elsinga told NOS. 

If all goes according to plan, the new plant will come into operation in December.

Fed-up with a growing mountain of stinking disposable nappies, a Dutch firm has started building the country's first recycling plant to turn poo into profit https://t.co/B7ettpjAZQ

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 18, 2018

'Trash is gold' as Benin community turns waste into biogas

Yahoo – AFP, Josué MEHOUENOU, August 22, 2018

The facility processes around six tonnes of organic waste every week, turning it
into 200 cubic metres of biogas (AFP Photo/Yanick FOLLY)

Houegbo (Bénin) (AFP) - Garbage has never smelled so sweet for a small village in southern Benin since it opened a pilot waste treatment centre to turn household rubbish into gas -- and cash.

"Our trash has become gold. We no longer throw it into the bush. We use it to make money," beams Alphonse Ago, who lives next to the centre in Houegbo village.

ReBin, a Swiss foundation for sustainable development, built the 1.3-hectare (3.2-acre) facility, which every week turns around six tonnes of organic waste into 200 cubic metres of biogas -- saving some 164 tonnes of wood from being used to make charcoal.

The centre, which opened late last year, also plans to produce around 400 tonnes of organic fertiliser per year.

So far, around 100 households in the area have signed up to the scheme to deposit their waste at the centre on a daily basis.

Every 10 kilogrammes (22 pounds) of waste fetches 250 CFA francs (around 50 euro cents, 57 US cents), paid either in cash or credit -- to buy biogas.

The fuel is a precious commodity in a rural region where electricity remains scarce.

Agnes Avoce, a shopkeeper and mother of five, proudly straps a large plastic bag of the gas onto her back.

So far, around 100 households in the area have signed up to the scheme. Every 

10 kilogrammes of waste fetches 250 CFA francs (around 50 euro cents), paid 

either in cash or credit -- to buy biogas (AFP Photo/Yanick FOLLY)

Biogas, she says, is much cleaner and more efficient for cooking than charcoal -- which "darkens the pots and makes me sick" -- and she is more than happy to make the switch.

Avoce is not alone; five other women are waiting to pick up gas.

"There are queues here since we opted for biogas," another customer says.

'Goldmine'

Symphorien Adonon, 35, drops off a week's worth of carefully sorted waste, smiling as he pockets his cash payment.

"Now I have enough to do the shopping for dinner," says Adonon, who drives a motorcycle taxi.

ReBin Benin Foundation chief Mark Giannelli was inspired to launch the project 

after noticing mountains of discarded pineapple skins in Benin, Africa's fourth-biggest 

exporter of the fruit (AFP Photo/Yanick FOLLY)

The centre has treated more than 20 tonnes of waste since it began operations late last year.

In addition to the customers' household waste, there is also rubbish collected by a local non-government organisation, Astome.

The NGO's chief, Florent Gbegnon, says he used to collect it on a push cart, but he now uses a tricycle provided by the centre.

"It's a huge relief," he says as he dumps a load of pineapple skins. "Pushing the cart was a real burden."

It was the massive amounts of waste such as pineapple skins that originally caught the attention of ReBin's founder, Mark Giannelli, and inspired him to set up the treatment centre in Houegbo.

"I saw this not as a problem, but as an opportunity, and I thought it was a goldmine," Giannelli told AFP.

Benin is Africa's fourth-biggest exporter of pineapples. And in Houegbo, which has one of the busiest markets in the region, local sources estimate that more than a tonne of waste is generated every day from that fruit alone.

Giannelli told AFP that he had been searching for a potential site for his project in Benin's West African neighbours Ghana and Togo.

Sewai Mardochee, director of the Toffo facility, says it should be duplicated across 

Benin. 'We can then create jobs and clean up our living environment by reducing

the use of firewood and coal' (AFP Photo/Yanick FOLLY)

But it was the enthusiasm with which the locals embraced his idea that finally convinced him to set up the waste treatment centre here, he said.

'Source of happiness'

The goal is to establish "a real economy that serves the population and protects the environment," he says. "We have to take the problems locally and adapt them to local solutions."

Once the necessary expertise has become more firmly established in Houegbo, Giannelli hopes to extend the project to larger municipalities and let local entrepreneurs run it.

The centre's director, Sewai Mardochee, suggests duplicating it in all of Benin's 77 municipalities.

"We can then create jobs and clean up our living environment by reducing the use of firewood and coal," he said.

Nicolas Hounje, a retired official, has put himself forward to take over the company.

"We did not know here that garbage can become a source of happiness," he says.

VIDEO: Garbage has never smelled so sweet for a small village in southern Benin since it opened a pilot waste treatment centre to turn household rubbish into gas -- and cash pic.twitter.com/HqvKadsl6w

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 22, 2018

Cow manure power plan steams ahead

DutchNews, October 4, 2016

Grass: a new potential power source.

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Two hundred farmers will soon be generating electricity from cow manure and there are plans to recruit 1,000 in four years, reports NOS on Tuesday.

FrieslandCampina, the largest dairy collective in the Netherlands, set up a business in September called Jumpstart to channel subsidies to farmers who want to install mono-digesters that break down waste into biogas.

Henk Kamp, minister for economic affairs, has committed €150m to the project and turned on the first mono-digester in Friesland on Tuesday morning.

FrieslandCampina plans to pay farmers a surcharge of €10 per thousand litres of milk they sell if they buy a mono-digester, and currently works with 13,500 of the Netherland’s 17,000 farmers. The organisation has committed to carbon-neutral growth, and currently most of the 13% of carbon emissions from the agriculture sector come from methane released by cow manure. 

There has been some debate about whether it is sustainable to generate electricity from cow dung, since mono-digesters only become profitable for a farm of at least 150 cattle. 

On Monday, FrieslandCampina announced that it wants to change its profit-sharing scheme with members, abolishing a quantum allowance and effectively stopping seasonal payments to farmers. It intends to increase its premium for outdoor grazing to €1.50 per 100kg of milk (from €1), and final proposals will be agreed in December.

Related Articles:

Dutch food policy needs rethink on dairy and meat: WRR

Kryon Q&A

(39) Question: Dear Kryon: I've noticed how many children are developing severe allergies to foods (my daughter included). When I've researched this, it seems that most of the allergies are essentially to seeds, grains, legumes, eggs, and dairy. I've noticed that these foods all hold the potential for life, or in the case of dairy, are essentially used to sustain the first stages of life in an animal's baby. My feeling is that because we're not releasing the life force within these foods (that is, sprouting, etc.), they're becoming harmful to us. I would like your impressions of this.

Answer: For thousands of years, these foods have worked for humanity. In these cases you speak about, the main culprit continues to be the way in which these foods are collected and processed. You won't find these allergies in third-world countries, and you won't find them within the children who work on farms, where they eat the foods directly. There will eventually have to come a day when you relax some of your efficiency attributes and go back to the way food was meant to be collected and eaten. And yes... there are effects from how the dairy animals are treated, too. Going back to some basics will help, and so will eliminating some of the procedures that supposedly create a "safer food." These procedures have instead made them begin to look like foreign food to the Human body.

UK's first 'poo bus' goes into regular service

Bio-Bus fuelled by human and household waste, which first ran between Bristol and Bath, will operate 15-mile route four days a week

The Guardian, Press Association, Sunday 15 March 2015

Bristol’s Bio Bus runs on faeces and household waste. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Britain’s first “poo bus”, which runs on human and household waste, goes into regular service later this month.

Powered by biomethane gas, the Bio-Bus will use waste from more than 32,000 households along its 15-mile route.

Operated by First West of England, the bus will fill up at a site in Avonmouth, Bristol, where sewage and inedible food waste is turned into biomethane gas.

The bus, which can seat up to 40 people, was unveiled last autumn. First is showing the bus in Bristol on Tuesday before it starts operating four days a week from 25 March.

If the route is successful, First will consider introducing more “poo buses”. The managing director, James Freeman, said: “Since its original unveiling last year, the Bio-Bus has generated worldwide attention and so it’s our great privilege to bring it to the city.

“The Bio-Bus previously made an appearance running between Bath and Bristol airport at the end of last year, but it’s only actually been used once before in the centre of Bristol itself.

“The very fact that it’s running in the city should help to open up a serious debate about how buses are best fuelled, and what is good for the environment.”

Related Articles:

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Bill Gates drinks cup of water that used to be human poop (VIDEO)

Dutch green groups reach deal on biomass for energy production

DutchNews.nl, March 13, 2015

Environmental organisations have reached agreement on the origins of biomass used in coal-fired power stations after two years of talks, the economic affairs ministry is quoted as saying on Friday. 

The agreement ends deadlock over the use of biomass – plant and vegetable matter – as an additional fuel in Dutch power stations. 

The use of biomass has gone down sharply because it is no longer subsidised pending the end of the dispute and this is threatening Dutch sustainable energy targets, website nu.nl reports. 

Organisations such as Greenpeace have been divided over the definition of sustainable biomass and its sources amid concerns not all plantations are fully sustainable. They say wood waste should only be used which comes from FSC certified forestry. 

Ed Nijpels, VVD stalwart and in charge of monitoring the energy agreement, says the Netherlands has the strictest biomass definition in the world. However, he has welcomed the breakthrough, nu.nl reportsed. 

Economic affairs minister Henk Kamp says the agreement will increase the share of sustainable energy used in the Netherlands from 4.5% to 5.7%. However, this is still a long way below the 2020 target of 14%.

Biofuel from trash could create green jobs bonanza, says report

Advanced biofuels industry could spur hundreds of thousands of jobs across Europe, says new report, but key European parliament vote next week could throw clean fuel ambitions into disarray

The Guardian, Arthur Neslen, 17 February 2015

Biofuel from household and industrial waste, woody crops, agricultural residues
 or algae is seen as less environmentally damaging than first generation biofuels
 produced by growing crops such as rapeseed. Photograph: Shutterstock/Courtesy
of Avery Dennison

Creating biofuels from waste produced by industry, farms, and households could generate 36,000 jobs in the UK and save around 37m tonnes of oil use annually by 2030, according to a new report.

Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of new jobs could be created by using these ‘advanced biofuels’, which could replace 16% of the continent’s road transport fuel by the same year, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) study said. But the gains will not come without ambitious policy to promote advanced biofuels, it warned.

“Alternative fuels from wastes and residues offer real and substantial carbon savings, even when taking account of possible indirect emissions,” said Chris Malins who led the analysis for ICCT . “The resource is available, and the technology exists – the challenge now is for Europe to put a policy framework in place that allows rapid investment.”

However, a key vote in the European Parliament’s environment committee next week could stop this potential being realised, as a centre-right grouping of MEPs has signalled that it will oppose a biofuels reform package considered crucial to the fledgling industry.

The committee will vote next Tuesday on a compromise biofuels reform bill that would mandate a goal of advanced biofuels providing 1.25% of Europe’s transport fuel by 2020.

This advanced fuel could come from woody crops, agricultural residues, algae or household and industrial waste. It is seen as less environmentally damaging than first generation biofuels produced by growing crops such as rapeseed, which have been criticised for displacing food crops and raising commodity prices.

Malins said that a mandatory advanced biofuels goal was “absolutely crucial” to realising the sector’s potential, as it would bring market certainty and long-term signals for investors.

  

But sources at the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) told the Guardian that they were unlikely to back such a package. “We think it is unrealistically ambitious,” a source said. “We are not going to support the compromise proposal.”

The bill would also introduce criteria for assessing biofuels’ sustainability and set a 6% cap for the amount that first generation biofuel could contribute to the EU’s 2020 target of providing 10% of road transport fuel from low carbon sources.

Marko Janhunen, the vice-president of UPM Biorefining in Finland, said that parliamentary manoeuvring could risk the advanced sector’s potential for hi-tech job creation in rural areas.

“This is a critical moment for the advanced biofuels sector and this discussion is very frustrating,” he told the Guardian. “We want to see incentives and reasons to invest. We want to get rid of the regulatory uncertainty that has been surrounding the discussion.”

UPM recently opened a €175m renewable waste biorefinery that transforms residues from pulp into renewable diesel that can be used by cars – or potentially, one day, by planes. British Airways is one of several members of a Leaders of Sustainable Biofuels group that Janhunen also chairs.

“The EU has spent hundreds of millions in projects supporting the uptake of these technologies,” Janhunen added. “Now they are here, it is very important to set policies in place that enable them to be brought into the market.”

The current proposal has faced a tortuous journey and campaigners fear that even a narrow victory now will embolden east European states to finally bury it in the European Council.

“If the EPP votes against the compromise, there is a massive risk that the whole package could fall into a conciliation process, or even no conclusion at all,” said Nusa Urbancic, a clean energy programme manager at the Transport and Environment group. “This will mean continued negative impacts on deforestation and food prices, as well as leading the EU away from our climate objectives.”

The European ethanol industry association (ePURE) has thrown its weight behind the biofuels bill. Its secretary-general, Robert Wright, told the Guardian that “only a binding target will send a clear signal to investors that there will be a future market for advanced biofuels.”

But other industry figures were sceptical about the likelihood of meaningful regulation at the EU level, and about the ICCT’s analysis more generally.

“Studies like this have rosy assumptions that feed into rosy conclusions,” said Eric Sievers, the CEO of Ethanol Europe Renewables. “You don’t make a large capital investment in a regulatory regime that expires in 2020, so the potential and reality are at odds. Nothing prevents this stuff from being imported from the US or Brazil so the whole jobs argument goes down the tubes.”

In the absence of EU renewable targets for 2030, however, Malins said that the cleaner fuel process in Europe could still be continued with carbon intensity fuel standards similar to those in California, an extension of the bloc’s Fuel Quality Directive, or fiscal measures by European states.

Urbancic said that the US already had advanced biofuels targets which would likely deter its small industry from importing to the EU, while Brazil was likely to focus its industry on aviation.

Bill Gates drinks cup of water that used to be human poop (VIDEO)

RT.com, January 07, 2015

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

Billionaire activist Bill Gates is backing an innovation in water filtration that turns human poop into drinking water. The OmniProcessor could bring clean water to millions of people and help solve the problem of debilitating diseases.

The OmniProcessor, designed and built by Seattle engineering firm Janicki Bioenergy, burns human waste to produce electricity and water. The processor powers itself through the use of a steam engine and does not emit an odor. The machine could handle 14 tons of waste from 100,000 people, producing up to 86,000 liters of drinkable water a day, and net 250 kw of electricity.

At a demonstration of the OmniProcessor shown on GatesNotes, a smiling Bill Gates drank water from the machine, which was previously untreated sewage.

“It’s water,” said Gates in the video.

He wrote on his blog: "The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe."

Gates said that 2.5 billion people – or 40 percent of the global population – have no access to safe sanitation, and many people use facilities that do not safely dispose of human waste. About 1.5 million children die every year from contaminated food and water, and half of all patients in hospitals are there because of problems with water and sanitation. It is extremely costly to try and create sewage infrastructure in cities and towns that already exist, so Gates thinks the low cost water treatment machine could be revolutionary.

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

“If you can get thousands of these things out there, then you’ve ensured the people really will grow up in a healthy way,” Gates told Wired. “They’ll live much higher quality lives. You will save a lot of lives. And you’ll have local entrepreneurs who are maintaining these things.”

The OmniProcessor, which costs $1.5 million, will undergo a pilot launch in Dakar, Senegal later this year.

Related Articles:

Indian children asked to blow whistle on open defecation

Indian villages lit up by off-grid power

Rural India's low-cost sanitary pad revolution


"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”

Central America’s New Coffee Buzz: Renewable Energy

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Katell Abiven, Dec 05, 2014

A worker stands by a biodigestor at La Hermandad farm in San Ramon, about
30 kilometers from Matagalpa, Nicaragua, on Nov. 19, 2014. (AFP Photo/Inti Ocon)

Matagalpa, Nicaragua. That morning cup of coffee gives many of us a needed boost, but Central American coffee farmers have found a new source of energy in their beans: turning agricultural wastewater into biogas.

An often-overlooked byproduct of the world’s favorite stimulant, the water used to process raw coffee beans is usually dumped back into the environment untreated.

In Central America, locals call it “honey water” because of its sweet taste and yellowish color.

Extremely polluting, it is high in methane gas — a leading contributor to global warming produced, in this case, by the fermentation of the coffee tree’s berries.

Across Nicaragua, the 1.3 million sacks of coffee produced annually generate pollution equivalent to about 20,000 cars.

Now a pilot project at 19 farms in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras is treating that water, separating out the methane and using it to fuel electric generators.

“Look how high that flame is,” said Sarahi Pastran as she cooked bananas in her kitchen at the La Hermandad coffee cooperative in San Ramon de Matagalpa in Nicaragua.

Her stove was connected to a pipe that ran across her lush yard and connected to a biogas generator fueled by coffee byproducts that used to pollute local rivers.

The project was launched in 2010 by Dutch sustainable farming group UTZ Certified, seeking to use less water in coffee growing and use it more creatively.

“It used to cause a lot of pollution … and it smelled,” said Francisco Blandon of the wastewater that his family farm used to produce.

“A lot of families live by the river. They bathe there, wash their laundry. It gave them rashes and intestinal parasites when they drank it,” said Blandon, 39, as two of his four children ran around barefoot on the dirt floor of their house about an hour north of San Ramon.

A man shows how to regulate with lime the
 pH of water used to wash the coffee beans at
 La Hermandad farm in San Ramon, about
30 kilometers from Matagalpa, Nicaragua,
on Nov. 19, 2014. (AFP Photo/Inti Ocon)

‘Hit the jackpot’

Blandon said he was skeptical when a team of extension workers first tried to sign him up for the project in 2010.

“But they were so insistent. … Less than a month later, it was up and running,” he said.

“Now the neighbors who visit say ‘Wow, you hit the jackpot!’” said his wife, Fatima Valenzuela Altamiro, 35.

She used to cook with wood that filled her kitchen with noxious smoke. Her husband had to cut down about five trees every season.

The first time biogas came out of the tube in her kitchen, “it was amazing,” she said.

“What a surprise when that flame appeared!”

The apparatus to extract the gas costs several thousand dollars. It was 75 percent funded by the Dutch government, 25 percent by local cooperatives.

“We’ve had very good results,” said Vera Espindola Rafael, Latin America coordinator for UTZ Certified, which also runs a labeling program to guarantee that coffee is produced with sustainable practices and fair labor conditions.

“We’ve achieved all the goals we set: producing biogas, reducing pollution and using less water.”

Water use at the La Hermandad farm has fallen by more than 80 percent, said technical manager Marvin Mairena.

Different farms need different mechanisms to extract methane gas, depending on their size.

Some produce biogas only during the harvest season, others produce it year-round by replacing coffee with animal waste.

UTZ has started rolling out the project in Colombia, Peru and Brazil. It is looking for funds to do the same in Kenya and Vietnam.

Agence France-Presse

Related Article:

Sumba powers up with renewables

Sumba powers up with renewables

Indonesian island hopes to spark green power revolution.

The Star – AFP, Angela Dewan, May 26, 2014

Catch the wind: Villagers erect a windmill on a field of small wind turbines
in Kamanggih, Sumba island, East Nusa Tenggara. — AFP

AN Indonesian family of farmers eat cobs of corn outside their hut under the glow of a light bulb, as the women weave and young men play with mobile phones.

Until two years ago, most people in Kamanggih village on the island of Sumba had no power at all. Now 300 homes have access to 24-hour electricity produced by a small hydroelectric generator in the river nearby.

“We have been using the river for water our whole lives, but we never knew it could give us electricity,” Adriana Lawa Djati said, as 1980s American pop songs drifted from a cassette player inside.

While Indonesia struggles to fuel its fast-growing economy, Sumba is harnessing power from the sun, wind, rivers and even pig dung in a bid to go 100% renewable by 2025.

The ambitious project, called the “Iconic Island“, was started by Dutch development organisation Hivos and is now part of the national government’s strategy to almost double renewables in its energy mix over the next 10 years.

Sumba, in central Indonesia, is an impoverished island of mostly subsistence farmers and fishermen. Access to power has made a huge difference to people like Djati.

“Since we started using electricity, so much has changed. The kids can study at night, I can weave baskets and mats for longer, and sell more at the market” she said.

While only around 30% of Sumba’s 650,000 people have been hooked up to the power grid, more than 50% of electricity used now on the island comes from renewable sources, government data show.

Hivos field co-ordinator Adrianus Lagur hoped the project would be replicated by other islands in the same province of East Nusa Tenggara, one of the country’s poorest.

Indonesia is one of the region’s most poorly electrified nation, partly because it sprawls over 17,000 islands of which more than 6,000 are inhabited.

Despite enjoying economic growth of around 6% annually in recent years, Indonesia is so short of energy that it rolls out scheduled power cuts that cripple entire cities and sometimes parts of the capital.

To keep up with growth, Indonesia is planning to boost its electricity capacity by 60 gigawatts over a 10-year period to 2022. Twenty percent of that is to come from renewable sources.

“Indonesia has been a net importer of oil for years, and our oil reserves are limited, so renewables are an important part of our energy security,” said Mochamad Sofyan, renewable energy chief of state electricity company PLN.

Hefty electricity and fuel subsidies have been a serious burden on the state budget.

But small-scale infrastructure, like mini hydroelectric generators and small wind turbines that power Sumba are not enough to close the national energy gap, even if they were built on all Indonesia’s islands.

Massive hydropower and geothermal projects, which use renewable energy extracted from underground pockets of heat, are needed to really tackle the nationwide problem, said Sofyan.

Indonesia, one of the world’s most seismically active countries, also has the biggest reserves of geothermal, often near its many volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries. It is considered one of the cleanest forms of energy available.

But geothermal is largely untapped as legislation to open up exploration moves slowly and the industry is bound in red tape.

Sofyan said there is also concern that Sumba’s target to be powered 100% by renewable energy is unrealistic.

“In the long term, we see Sumba still relying somewhat on diesel generators. It will be powered predominantly by renewables, but I don’t think it will be able to switch off the grid,” Sofyan said.

Hivos admits its goal is ambitious, saying it is “inspirational and political” rather than technical but the NGO believes the target may be achievable even in the long term.

Nonetheless the Sumbanese are reaping the benefits of the green energy sources already available, which have lifted a considerable financial burden for many due to reduced costs for wood and oil.

Elisabeth Hadi Rendi, 60, in the town of Waingapu, has been farming pigs since 1975, but it was only two years ago when Hivos visited her home that she came to understand the power of porcine poo. Pigs are commonly kept in Sumba, a predominantly Christian island in Muslim-majority Indonesia.

Each day Rendi shovels dung from the pig pens and churns it in a well, after which it is funnelled to a tank and converted into methane gas. It has saved her household around six million rupiah (RM1,680) in two years, a significant sum for a typical Sumbanese family.

“We also make fertiliser from the waste to use in our garden, where we grow vegetables,” said Rendi. “We eat the vegetables and feed some to the pigs too, which will become biogas again, so the energy literally goes round and round.” — AFP