Replace Charcoal with Methane!

Haiti - Environment: Replace charcoal with methane ...

17/04/2011 12:40:02

In a country where the population almost exclusively cooks using charcoal, and where massive deforestation due to the use of traditional fuel in 98% of the territory is a challenge, the production and combustion of methane could replace this entirely.

The idea is not new and has already been proven in China and Central America but is just beginning to be developed in Haiti: to produce methane gas for cooking, by recycling human excrement. Called a "digester", this invention requires little infrastructure: toilets, dry or not, connected to a shaft made of bricks, itself connected to a pool. Without air, 85% of bacteria contained in human waste decompose naturally, producing methane gas, says Martin Wartchow, a hydrologist who works for the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio "The remaining 15% of organic waste is discharged with water in an area where there is vegetation [...] even this degraded water then becomes totally clean  [...] We just raise fish in it, " says the hydrologist.

"The UN has paid for many studies to find alternatives to charcoal, benefiting countries such as Nicaragua or China," commented Martin Wartchow, an ironic reminder that "70,000  biodigesters have been constructed in Central America ... and a thousand times more in China! "

In Haiti, only 70 biodigesters were built by Viva Rio and many projects are underway. But once built, all is not won, as illustrated by the camp Santos 17, a suburb of Port-au-Prince where biodigesters were installed in February alongside the new transitional shelters. A displaced woman points to a methane stove installed in her shelter, but admits to not fully understand the usefulness of the "thing" even as she said "I cook with charcoal ..."

For this project a success in Haiti will require much more than methane, it will simultaneously need to educate and to raise awareness to respect the environment, in abandoning the traditional charcoal in favor of a gas that is cheap and inexhaustible.

IP / HaïtiLibre