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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies (PCRET) will install 368 Biogas plants in different rural areas by the June 2012 under the project “Development and Promotion of Biogas Technology for meeting domestic fuel needs of rural areas and production of Bio fertilizer”.
This project was launched in 2008 through which 2500 family size biogas plants to be installed in the country, out of these 2132 plants have been installed and the remaining will be fix by end of financial year 2011-12.
Biogas plant used for converting fermentable organic matter, particularly cattle dung, into a combustible gas (Biogas) and fully matured and enriched organic fertilizer.
A typical biogas plant consists of a digester where the anaerobic fermentation takes place, a gasholder for collecting the biogas, the input-output units for feeding the influent and storing the effluent respectively, and a gas distribution system.
Giving further details, Deputy Director PCRET, Sarfraz Khattak said as per livestock census 2000, there are 46.69 million of animals (Buffaloes, Cows, Bullocks) in Pakistan. In the year 2002-03, the domestic live stock population was estimated at 23.3 million cattle, 24.8 million buffalo, 24.6 million sheep and 52.8 million goats.
He said on the average, the daily dung dropping of a medium size animal is estimated at 10 Kg/per day. This would yield a total of 466.9 million Kg dung per day.
Assuming 50 per cent collectability, the availability of fresh dung comes to be 233.45 million Kg/ per day. Thus, 11.67 Million M3 biogas per day can be produced through biocmethanation, he maintained.
Since 0.4 M3 gas could suffice the cooking needs of a person per day, therefore 11.67 million M3 of biogas could meet the cooking needs of 29.2 million peoples.
The total population of Pakistan is about 170 million, out of which 70 per cent reside in the rural areas.
“We can meet about 30 per cent cooking requirements of the rural masses from this source of energy (biogas) alone.
Besides, producing 33.52 million Kg of biocfertilizer per day or 18.6 million tons of biocfertilizer per year, which is an essential requirement for sustaining the fertility of agricultural lands”, said Sarfraz Khattak.
Giving details, Deputy Director PCRET said average family in Pakistan consists upon 5-7 members. As per survey, the consumption of various kind of conventional fuel for cooking purpose includes Wood 27.93 Kg/ day, Animal dung 61.66 Kg/day , Charcoal 8.1 Kg/day,Kerosene oil 3.1 Lt/day, L.P.G 1.5 Kg/day ,electricity 25 KWh/day.
Deputy Director PCRET said a family size Biogas plant (5 M3) saves annually 10056Kg wood or 22200 Kg animal dung or 2940 Kg charcoal or 1104 lit kerosene oil or 540 kg L.P.G or 9000 Kwh of electricity.
Sarfraz Khattak said completion of this project will help protection of forests, protection of environment and bio diversity, provision of soot-free fuel to meet domestic energy needs, provision of neat and clean atmosphere, protection from eye-cataracts and respiratory diseases and also provision of Bio-fertilizer, which is direly needed for the improvement and sustenance of fertility of agri lands.
