Boosting energy resources!
The "Star Business Report" of May 23rd. on this important and very relevant matter, dealt only with solar energy; although for Bangladesh, we should exploit biomass, wind and other sources of energy and electricity!
Solar energy, and wind turbines need many imported components, like solar panels, inverters, batteries for solar energy and the whole wind turbines set-up for wind power; to make it compatible with domestic electrical distribution network. The investment is also comparatively large. In fact, per MW cost of electricity generated, is highest for these two sources of power! In stark contrast, freely available biomass can provide methane gas-- a highly valuable energy source with practically no imported components, except for gas storage tanks, that can be locally fabricated, and pumps or compressors to put the gas into the distribution system! The investment for biomass digesters is comparatively very small, and only local materials are needed for it!
Biomass source of generating methane gas from 'animal and human solid waste' deserves topmost attention and priority in our national interest for all urban areas! High density housing areas, like apartment complexes, public or private residential projects, housing estates, school, college and university hostels, prisons, police and armed forces barracks and cantonments are potential sources from where we can get methane from solid waste.
Today we spend money to remove it by sewage lines, then treat it and
neutralise it in "sewage treatment plants" and then pump it out to the rivers! This human waste can provide us much needed methane gas, and the solid residue, left behind after gas extraction, which has no smell, can be compressed and sold as agricultural fertilizer and recycled back to the soil for farming.
It is therefore essential that we are fully aware of this rich potential source of fuel gas, from the 'un-mentionable' human waste not discussed in polite society! We should go all out to develop this simple source of fuel gas, for which very little investment is needed. All these are local materials-- cement, sand and bricks to build the digesters. The per unit cost of energy, for methane is far cheaper than the foreign exchange cost of exploring and developing gas wells! We cannot afford to ignore this readily available free raw material for producing much needed methane; geological sources for which are finite and rapidly drying up! In contrast, methane from solid waste will be available so long as we exist!
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