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HAVANA, Apr 26 (IPS) – Simply to acquire a superb fertilizer it was price constructing a biodigester, says Cuban farmer Alexis García, who proudly reveals the greens in his household’s backyard, in addition to the big variety of fruit bushes which have benefited from biol, the top product of biogas expertise.
García and his spouse Iris Mejías organically develop all of the agricultural merchandise that make them self-sufficient, on the land round their house within the semi-urban neighborhood of Sierra Maestra, within the municipality of Boyeros on the south facet of Havana.
“I used to make use of slightly urea, however due to the financial scenario it has turn into very troublesome to import this and different fertilizers. The bioproducts are a chance to make up for that scarcity and, in some instances, perform as pesticides,” García, a 62-year-old retired college professor who’s now devoted to his crops, advised IPS.
Biol is the liquid effluent with a sure diploma of stabilization that comes out of the biodigester, as soon as the method of anaerobic digestion of natural matter, which incorporates animal manure, crop waste and/or liquid waste, has been accomplished. It’s wealthy in vitamins for crops and for restoring soil by means of fertigation.
García identified that the challenges of acquiring vitality and the necessity to course of manure prompted the set up of the geomembrane biodigester, which as of December 2023 gives about 4 cubic meters of biogas per day.
This is among the three varieties of biodigesters most used at a small and medium scale in Cuba, along with the cell kind, also referred to as the Indian mannequin, and the mounted dome or Chinese language biodigester.
“I had learn slightly about it and needed to have a biodigester. With some financial savings we determined to begin constructing one. Along with the help of our sons Alexis and Alexei, we had the backing and recommendation of José Antonio Guardado,” coordinator of the Biogas Customers Motion (MUB), stated García.
Based in 1983, the MUB brings collectively some 3,000 farmers who use this expertise on this Caribbean island nation of 11 million folks.
![Preschool teacher Iris Mejías uses biogas to cook food, which gives her autonomy, saves money and improves the quality of life in her home in the south of the Cuban capital. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/04/aa-4.jpg)
Biogas alternatives
Mejías, 59, stated that “with biogas you lose the worry of not having sufficient gasoline for cooking. It gives safety.”
Meiías, a academics at a preschool for the younger kids of working moms, says that when the financial disaster turned extra extreme within the Nineteen Nineties, she cooked with firewood, charcoal, kerosene and even coconut shells to arrange her household’s day by day meals.
“In the event you prepare dinner with electrical tools, you rely upon the ability provide, or in case you have a gasoline cylinder (liquefied petroleum gasoline), you are concerned that it’ll run out and you will not have a spare. In each instances the biodigester saves cash,” she stated.
Mejías stated it’s simpler to prepare dinner meals for home animals and warmth water “with out smut or smoke that makes it needed to clean your hair day-after-day or makes it troublesome to handle your palms.”
Research present that methane is a potent greenhouse gasoline, with a warming energy 80 occasions higher than that of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Correct administration of the organic methane ensuing from the decomposition of agricultural residues and manure can generate worth and be a cheap answer to keep away from water and soil contamination.
Due to this fact, its extraction and use as vitality, particularly in rural and semi-urban environments, is usually a answer to cut back electrical energy consumption and assist fight local weather change.
In accordance with García, the island might obtain higher vitality advantages if there have been clear incentives for the set up of biodigesters.
Though the acute home financial disaster has had a really adverse affect on the nationwide swine and cattle herd, “many dairies and pig farms have no idea what to do with the day by day output of manure. In actual fact, our biodigester is fed from close by amenities the place it’s piled up they usually give it to us without cost,” he stated.
![Alexis García dries coffee beans next to solar panels installed on the roof of his house in southern Havana. The possibility of storing energy with the back-up of recovered batteries provides the family with approximately three hours of autonomy during blackouts. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/04/aaa-3.jpg)
Different incentives
Cuba has a biogas manufacturing potential of 615,595 cubic meters per yr from agricultural and industrial manufacturing, in keeping with the Bioenergy Atlas 2022.
That quantity represents 189,227 tons of oil equal per yr or 710,095 megawatt hours (MWh) per yr. Of the entire, 63 % comes from agricultural manufacturing, he stated.
In García’s opinion, Cuba’s rural atmosphere “is in a greater place to realize the specified vitality independence. However financial amenities could be needed, reminiscent of loans for the development of biodigesters, bonuses for folks to supply that vitality and entry to purchase lamps, pots and even fridges that use biogas.”
Of Cuba’s 11 million inhabitants, about 23 %, some 2.3 million folks, reside in rural areas, in keeping with official statistics.
However, it’s estimated that there are some 5,000 biodigesters on the island, though conservative estimates by specialists think about it attainable to broaden the community to twenty,000 household models.
Consultants argue that the direct use of biogas is extra environment friendly than reworking it into electrical energy.
A big proportion of Cuba’s 4 million households use electrical energy as the principle vitality supply for cooking and heating water for bathing, which represents about 40 % of consumption.
Cuba is a rustic extremely depending on gasoline imports.
Over the last 5 years, in parallel to the deterioration of the home financial scenario, the decline of the principle sources of international foreign money and the strengthening of the U.S. embargo, the authorities have confronted growing difficulties in assembly the demand for gasoline.
About 95 % of Cuba’s electrical energy era depends on fossil fuels. The federal government goals to extend clear sources from the present 5 % to round 30 % of electrical energy era by 2030.
“Think about what it will imply if not all, a minimum of many of the homes within the Cuban countryside had a biodigester or photo voltaic panels. Any technique that encourages independence from the nationwide energy grid, or that gives vitality, could be very constructive,” stated García.
Lately, the worldwide Biomas-Cuba undertaking (2009-2022) centered on serving to to grasp the significance of renewable vitality sources in rural environments, the function of on-farm biodigesters and waste remedy techniques in swine amenities.
The initiative, financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (Cosude), was coordinated by the Indio Hatuey Experimental Station, a analysis heart hooked up to the College of the western province of Matanzas, and concerned associated establishments in a number of of the nation’s 15 provinces.
Ministerial Order 395 of the Ministry of Energy and Mines of 2021 stipulated that every of Cuba’s 168 municipalities should have a biogas growth program and technique, and coordinate its administration and implementation with their respective provinces.
As well as, the non-governmental Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Power Sources and Respect for the Setting (Cubasolar), along with the MUB, encourages coaching workshops and the recommendation of specialists.
![Banana clusters can be seen growing in the backyard of the García-Mejías home in southern Havana. Both the vegetables in the nursery and the fruit trees benefit from biol, the end product of biogas technology, which provides fertilizer. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/04/aaaa-3.jpg)
Transferring in direction of vitality independence
One of many aspirations of the García-Mejías household is to realize vitality sustainability for his or her house and agricultural manufacturing.
“We foresee the development of a second biodigester, however this one can have a cell dome, which ought to present two cubic meters of biogas per day, however rather more effectively, and with a better stress. With a better quantity we will profit some neighbors,” García stated.
On the roof of their home, six 720-watt photo voltaic panels backed up by recovered batteries give them autonomy of roughly three hours of electrical energy within the occasion of an influence failure.
“We plan to put in a wind turbine, in addition to a photo voltaic heater product of plastic pipes. We wish to arrange an indication space in the home to point out the benefits of renewable energies and show how the whole lot we do is completed utilizing these vitality sources,” stated the previous professor.
“We’d like a higher tradition and consciousness about renewable energies. There may be resistance amongst some locations and other people. However, there are the excessive costs which don’t foment the speedy enlargement of applied sciences and tools,” García stated when IPS requested him in his house in regards to the obstacles to growing the family use of renewables.
“Folks hear in regards to the biodigester and assume it is troublesome. It takes slightly work, however then the advantages are many. There’s a ignorance within the media. Folks come to us in search of assist in constructing biodigesters. We additionally obtain college students, which opens up a chance for the brand new generations to develop up with the tradition of utilizing nature in a sustainable means,” he added.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service