permaculture

["L.Santoyo Designs" <santoyo@earthflow.com>]

Check out the following article for the real future of biofuels...Out 
of this suffering and depravation comes inspiration.

Kathryn Santoyo




> Human Feces Powers Rwandan Prison
>
> By 
> <http://www.wired.com/news/feedback/mail/1,2330,0-1303-68127,00.html>Cyrus 
> Farivar
>
> 02:00 AM Jul. 16, 2005 PT
>
> Imagine eating food that was cooked using natural gas generated from 
> your own human waste. Thousands of prisoners in Rwanda don't have to 
> imagine it -- they live it.
>
> Prisoners' feces is converted into combustible "biogas," or methane 
> gas that can be used for cooking. It has reduced by 60 percent the 
> annual wood-fuel costs which would otherwise reach near $1 million, 
> according to Silas Lwakabamba, rector of the 
> <http://www.kist.ac.rw/>Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and 
> Management, where the technology was developed.
>
> Last month, the Rwandan prison biogas facilities received an 
> <http://www.ashdenawards.org/about.html>Ashden Award for sustainable 
> energy. The award, which comes with a prize worth nearly $50,000, is 
> given by the Ashden Trust, a British charity organization that 
> promotes green technologies.
>
> "It's turning a negative social situation in terms of the Rwandan 
> genocide into something that can benefit local people in the local 
> area," said Corrina Cordon, spokeswoman for the Ashden Awards.
>
> Many of Rwanda's 120,000 prisoners are incarcerated because of the 
> genocidal campaign. The prisons are overcrowded by a factor of 10, 
> Lwakabamba said.
>
> He added that prison overpopulation has created a situation where 
> the facilities have significantly increased energy needs. The 
> overcrowding also leads to large amounts of human waste that the 
> prisons cannot adequately process.
>
> Lwakabamba said that prior to the construction of biogas facilities 
> at a prison situated atop a hill at Cyangugu in southwestern Rwanda, 
> some human waste was being thrown down the hill, near natural bodies 
> of water such as Lake Kivu.
>
> "It got started when we went to these prisons and we realized that 
> so much human waste was going into these rivers and we had to try 
> something," he said.
>
> The university rector said that the Rwandan biogas facilities, which 
> are currently in half of the 30 prisons around the country, now 
> contribute half of the energy needs for cooking and lighting in each 
> location.
>
> Rwanda's biogas facilities are among the most ambitious in the 
> world, given their size and scope. They range up to 1,000 cubic 
> meters in something resembling a beehive shape.
>
> The process requires putting a given amount of human or other animal 
> waste into a "digester," which ferments it using bacteria to release 
> methane gas that can be captured and then burned as fuel. Attached 
> is a "compensating chamber" that replenishes the supply of bacteria 
> to keep the operation self-sustaining.
>
> The lead engineer on the project, Ainea Kimaro, says that within 
> four weeks, 100 cubic meters of waste can be transformed into 50 
> cubic meters of fuel.
>
> Biogas is being used around the world, including in homes in 
> <http://www.ashdenawards.org/finalist05_1.html>Nepal and to power 
> trains in 
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4112926.stm>Sweden.
>
> Kimaro said that while waste smells bad initially, the biogas that 
> is produced has no foul odor. He added that the Rwandan prisoners 
> are not put off by the idea of using the byproduct of human waste to 
> cook.
>
> "Our people are very adaptive," he said. "They see it working; they 
> want to use it."
>
> Once the methane is produced, the remaining waste is used as an 
> odor-free fertilizer for the gardens at the prison.
>
> Martin Wright, an Ashden Awards judge who traveled to Rwanda and 
> visited the prison at Cyangugu, got down on his hands and knees to 
> take a whiff of the manure.
>
> "I've sniffed the residue and there is no smell at all," he said.
>
> As remarkable as the odorless fertilizer is, Wright said that he was 
> even more impressed by the idea that the new energy project involves 
> people being held on charges of genocide in Cyangugu, just across 
> the border from the volatile civil war raging in the Democratic 
> Republic of the Congo.
>
> "(That) they've become the site for this amazing pioneering project 
> means that you're taking something that's a consequence of human 
> misery and producing something hopeful out of it," he said.