GAS from rotting manure could fuel the future. Biogas digesters, devices that turn decomposing manure into fuel, are cost-effective, environmentally friendly and improve the health of rural people who use them.
“Families using biogas digesters made half as many visits to the doctor”
In the first rigorous study on their costs and benefits, Govindasamy Agoramoorthy of Tajen University in P’ingtung, Taiwan, and Minna Hsu of National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, found that rural Indian families with biogas plants used 60 per cent less firewood and kerosene (Human Ecology, ).
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Many rural families own cows and buffaloes, which provide a few dozen kilograms of manure a day, and the fuel savings mean that the $250 biogas plants pay for themselves within two years. Before they had the digesters, many families could not afford to buy enough fuel and scavenged firewood illegally from forests.
Burning kerosene and firewood is linked to respiratory disease, a leading cause of death for rural villagers, especially in women and children. Because the cleaner-burning biogas reduces indoor air pollution, families made half as many visits to the doctor for smoke-related health problems as they had done before.
The study is the first to draw a solid link between installation of a biodigester and health benefits, says Peter Haas of the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, a non-profit organisation that operates in Guatemala and Haiti.
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