Cooking With Biogas and Planting Trees
Farmers in China are turning to biogas for their home cooking and lighting needs because of government initiatives and incentives that encourage farmers and rural dwellers to switch from coal. According to national statistics, 26 million households in China were using methane from biogas sources for cooking and heating by the end of 2007. That number rose to 31 million by 2008. China has invested more than 10.5 billion yuan from 2004 to 2009 for construction of biogas projects in rural areas, including 98,600 villages.
Animal and crop wastes are processed in biogas digester pools into clean methane that can be used for cooking, heating and lighting and replace carbon emitting coal. After five years of research, the Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank initiated its Efficient Utilization of Agricultural Waste Project in 2003. The ADB offered $33 million in loans targeting rural Shanxi, Hubei, Henan and Jiangxi provinces. The provinces put up matching funds that trained thousands of farmers, biogas facility experts, construction workers and managers in the construction and operation of communal and home biogas facilities.
China encouraged the development of biogas as part of the Renewable Energy Law, which became effective last year, and also as part of the country’s Mid-and-Long-Term Development Program for Renewable Energy.
In America, the government has decided to plant 18 million acres of new trees ─ roughly the size of West Virginia ─ by 2020, replacing both pastures and farm fields under a bill passed by the House of Representatives in June 2009. The bill gives financial incentives to farmers and ranchers to plant trees, which suck in large amounts of carbon dioxide. The trees not only lower carbon dioxide levels, but they would improve the water quality because they need lower levels of fertilizer and pesticides.
Animal and crop wastes are processed in biogas digester pools into clean methane that can be used for cooking, heating and lighting and replace carbon emitting coal. After five years of research, the Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank initiated its Efficient Utilization of Agricultural Waste Project in 2003. The ADB offered $33 million in loans targeting rural Shanxi, Hubei, Henan and Jiangxi provinces. The provinces put up matching funds that trained thousands of farmers, biogas facility experts, construction workers and managers in the construction and operation of communal and home biogas facilities.
China encouraged the development of biogas as part of the Renewable Energy Law, which became effective last year, and also as part of the country’s Mid-and-Long-Term Development Program for Renewable Energy.
In America, the government has decided to plant 18 million acres of new trees ─ roughly the size of West Virginia ─ by 2020, replacing both pastures and farm fields under a bill passed by the House of Representatives in June 2009. The bill gives financial incentives to farmers and ranchers to plant trees, which suck in large amounts of carbon dioxide. The trees not only lower carbon dioxide levels, but they would improve the water quality because they need lower levels of fertilizer and pesticides.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 6:04 AM
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