World Bank to provide $5 million for biogas plants in rural Nepal
The World Bank has agreed to provide $5 million in assistance to co-finance the setting up of 37,000 biogas plants in rural areas of Nepal. The World Bank administered Global Partnership on Output Based Aid (GPOBA) has signed a grant agreement with the Nepalese government under the fourth phase of the Biogas Support Program (BSP-IV). The Project will be implemented by the Alternate Energy Promotion Center (AEPC). The grant is co-funded by the United Kingdom 's Department for International Development (DFID).
The project aims to replace traditional energy sources used by the rural population, such as fire wood and kerosene, with modern biogas plants. Biogas digesters use anaerobic decomposition of organic material to produce a methane-rich which can be used for cooking and light. GPOBA’s grant will sponsor new biogas plants ranging in capacity from 4m3 to 10m3. Even the smallest plants with a 4m3 capacity produce enough gas to run a cooking stove for nearly 2.5 hours daily.
Switching to biogas has multiple social, economic and environmental advantages:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: anaerobic digestion :: biogas :: deforestation :: World Bank :: Nepal ::
The Biogas Support Program was started in 1992 by the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) together with the Government of Nepal to promote environmentally friendly and affordable energy to remote rural areas. The project has also received substantial funding from KfW. Since 2006, the BSP-IV is benefiting from funding form the World Bank's Community Development Carbon Fund in exchange for reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases.
Since 1992 the Biogas Support Program has helped to install 150,000 biogas plants in rural Nepal. The local non-governmental organisation Biogas Sector Partnership – Nepal (BSP-N) is serving as project implementing agency.
The Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) is a multi-donor trust fund established in 2003 to develop output based aid (OBA) approaches across a variety of sectors including infrastructure, health and education. OBA subsidies are performance based and are designed to create incentives for efficiency and the long term success of development projects. GPOBA’s current donors are DFID, IFC, the Directorate-General for International Cooperation of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) and AusAid of Australia.
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The project aims to replace traditional energy sources used by the rural population, such as fire wood and kerosene, with modern biogas plants. Biogas digesters use anaerobic decomposition of organic material to produce a methane-rich which can be used for cooking and light. GPOBA’s grant will sponsor new biogas plants ranging in capacity from 4m3 to 10m3. Even the smallest plants with a 4m3 capacity produce enough gas to run a cooking stove for nearly 2.5 hours daily.
Switching to biogas has multiple social, economic and environmental advantages:
- use of the biofuel reduces carbon emissions
- it decreases the pressures leading to deforestation by relying on household and farm waste instead
- decreases the frequency of respiratory infections that result from burning sooty fuels in poorly ventilated households - a killer in the kitchen claiming approximately 2 million lives each year (earlier post)
- in the particular context of rural Nepal, the Community Development Carbon Fund estimates that families will save approximately three hours of labor per day from the switch from gathering fuel wood to biogas - quite an impressive change in the life of these people
- considerable financial savings occur from not purchasing fuels like kerosene
- biogas production yields an organic fertilizer; families save by not spending on synthetic fertilizer
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: anaerobic digestion :: biogas :: deforestation :: World Bank :: Nepal ::
The Biogas Support Program was started in 1992 by the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) together with the Government of Nepal to promote environmentally friendly and affordable energy to remote rural areas. The project has also received substantial funding from KfW. Since 2006, the BSP-IV is benefiting from funding form the World Bank's Community Development Carbon Fund in exchange for reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases.
Since 1992 the Biogas Support Program has helped to install 150,000 biogas plants in rural Nepal. The local non-governmental organisation Biogas Sector Partnership – Nepal (BSP-N) is serving as project implementing agency.
The Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) is a multi-donor trust fund established in 2003 to develop output based aid (OBA) approaches across a variety of sectors including infrastructure, health and education. OBA subsidies are performance based and are designed to create incentives for efficiency and the long term success of development projects. GPOBA’s current donors are DFID, IFC, the Directorate-General for International Cooperation of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) and AusAid of Australia.
Article continues
Friday, October 05, 2007
POET receives $80 million grant for cellulosic ethanol project
According to the cooperative agreement, phase one of the project will last approximately 20 months. A subsequent phase two agreement will then be negotiated to cover construction which is expected to take two years. Following construction, facility operation is expected to begin in 2011.
Along with five other companies, POET was selected in February by the DOE to negotiate a joint funding relationship to construct a commercial cellulosic ethanol production facility. POET's award is up to $80 million and can�t exceed 40 percent of the project's total cost.
Project Liberty, POET's cellulosic project, will convert an existing 50 million gallon per year (mgpy) dry-mill ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa into an integrated corn-to-ethanol and cellulose-to-ethanol biorefinery. Once complete, the facility will produce 125 million gallons per year and show the following efficiency increases:
- delivering 11 percent more ethanol from a bushel of corn
- reaping 27 percent more ethanol per acre of corn
- reducing natural gas consumption in the plant by 83 percent
- reducing water consumption by 24 percent
Twenty-five percent of the output will be from cellulosic corn fiber and corn cobs. Once the transformation is complete, the facility will also produce corn germ meal and corn oil, as well as 80,000 tons of Dakota Gold Corn Germ Dehydrated and 100,000 tons of Dakota Gold HP (a high protein distillers grain feed product) annually as animal feed co-products.The bioconversion process to be used at the cellulosic ethanol plant draws on two technologies:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: cellulose :: hydrolysis :: biorefinery ::
- 'BFRAC', an advanced corn fractionation process which separates the corn into three fractions including fiber, germ and endosperm. The endosperm is then fermented to create ethanol while the remaining fractions are converted into new value-added co-products, including POET's trademarked Dakota Gold HP, trademarked Dakota Bran cake, corn germ meal and corn oil. In addition to these high value co-products, the process also results in increased plant throughput and decreased energy consumption.
- 'BPX', a patent-pending raw starch hydrolysis process which converts starch to sugar, which then ferments to ethanol without heat. The BPX process not only reduces energy costs, but also releases additional starch content for conversion to ethanol, increases protein content and quality of co-products, increases co-product flowability, potentially increases plant throughput and significantly decreases plant emissions.
In June, POET announced that Jim Sturdevant, a 22-year veteran of the US Geological Survey, will serve as director of the project and that they had successfully produced cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs. POET has purchased additional land adjacent to their Emmetsburg production facility in order to accommodate construction of the cellulosic facility.POET, the largest dry mill ethanol producer in the United States, is an established player in the biorefining industry through project development, design and construction, research and development, plant management, and marketing. Formerly known as Broin, the 20-year old company currently operates 21 production facilities in the United States with six more in construction or in the midst of expansion. The company produces and markets more than 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol annually.
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posted by Biopact team at 5:04 PM 1 comments links to this post