Saturday, July 16, 2005

Wired News: Human Feces Powers Rwandan Prison

Wired News: Human Feces Powers Rwandan Prison: "magine 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 Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management, where the technology was developed."

Last month, the Rwandan prison biogas facilities received an 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....

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.

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