A KZN woman uses the gas from cow dung to power her two-plate stove and feed a community.
|||Roughly 100km from Durban’s city centre, far removed from the tireless debate and gnashing of teeth that will be the UN climate talks, beneath her tin roof a mother of a household of nine in rural Willowfontein needs no arm twisting to remain committed to reducing emissions.
As part of a gender renewable energy pilot project, fifty-five-year- old Ernestina Chamane was introduced to her “miracle” last year – harnessing the power of cow dung to fire her two-plate stove.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the Green Network partnered to have what is called a bio-digester fitted outside Chamane’s home. Fifty thousand dollars in funding was provided through GEF’s small grants programme, with the implementation undertaken by the UNDP and the Green Network.
Once a day Chamane deposits dung from 12 cattle into the mixing bay on one end of a 10m tube along with water, allowing for the production of bacteria and the biogas which is then piped directly into a modified low-pressure gas stove in her kitchen. By her own admission, Chamane cooks and reheats food several times a day, but never completely managing to deplete the supply of biogas.
After the initial construction of the system the fermentation takes about two months, but thereafter a constant supply is readily available everyday.
Not only does R50 worth of electricity now tide Chamane over for more than 10 days, but she insists that the slurry to emerge at the tail-end of the digester is an excellent fertiliser for her crops.
So much has the slurry improved the growth of spinach, carrots and beans that Chamane gives away surplus produce to members of her community.
The UNDP is punting the project as an excellent example of how local initiatives can reduce dependence on the grid, and therefore the related production of greenhouse emissions through the burning of fossil fuels.
At the moment, seven local women are trained to construct the bio-digesters, with the aim of rolling them out to the broader community.
The biogas produced from the dung is an excellent substitute for charcoal and firewood commonly used in poorer communities, thereby reducing deforestation.
According to the UNDP, biogas production may also assist in the reduction of respiratory problems associated with household fires, and food poisoning from the use of untreated manure as fertiliser.
The UNDP’s Agostinho Zacarias, says environmental preservation and sustainability is an essential foundation for development and poverty alleviation, and key to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
“We hope that this pilot project can be the beginning of much bigger things to come in the creation of economically and environmentally sustainable peri-urban and rural developments,” he adds.