Biogas Plant in Karachi

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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This looks like a good project to me.
But I can not find which government department/agency is involved in it?! Who started this project?

HiRAD LTD - Biogas for Energy

HiRAD has built a pilot plant in Landhi Cattle Colony near Karachi Pakistan to verify production and performance data. The final pieces of equipment will be installed in August 2008 enabling start up shortly after. Landhi is home to over 400,000 Buffalo, the largest herd in the World in an area of just 3Km2. Currently over 7,200 tons per day of dung is produced, much of which of which ends up on the land or in the sea, causing terrible pollution and seriously damaging the marine eco-system, not to mention methane escaping that is 21 times more damaging to the atmosphere.

Following on from the pilot, the full size plant, possibly the largest manure biogas plant in the World, will use this dung and other organic wastes, to produce many million of cubic metres of biogas and over 200,000 tons of organic fertiliser each year, providing employment for over 500 local workers. This will support electricity-generating capacity of many megawatts.

This project is the culmination of almost 10 years work by New Zealand Consultancy Empower, and NEC of Karachi, and it is our privilege to participate in this life changing enterprise, that will prevent over 1 million tons of CO2e reaching the atmosphere each year, making this one of the largest CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) projects.

Biogas plant commissioned in Landhi Cattle Colony
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Karachi

A pilot project costing $5 million to produce 486 meters cubic feet of bio-gas and 25 kilowatts of electricity per day from cow dung has been commissioned in the Landhi Cattle Colony.

A British company, M/S HiRAD Technology, Plc, UK, has installed this plant as a pilot project to utilise cow dung and convert it into biogas and electricity, besides producing 2.25 tons of enriched natural manure (organic fertiliser) per day.

The formal inauguration ceremony of the pilot project will be held after the successful results of the commissioning, sources said on Friday.

They said that cow dung will not be discharged into the sea and instead this waste would be used to produce bio-gas, electricity and manure. He said that after the successful experiment, a large plant with a capacity of 30 megawatts of electricity, 0.430 million cubic metres of bio-gas and 1,500 tons of manure per day will be installed in the cattle colony.

The cost of the large plant is estimated to be in the range of $110 to $120 million and leading multinational companies besides the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have already shown their keen interest to invest in this project.

Sources said that Karachi has a cattle population of 1 million. Of this, more than 400,000 or 40 percent cattle heads are housed in Landhi Cattle Colony.

It is the only colony in world having largest concentration of animals at one place. An estimated 8000 tons of animal manure is produced from this colony everyday which is drained into the sea through a locally made drainage system.

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Re: Biogas Plant in Karachi

Lets not digress.

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Alhamdulilallah. God bless this excellent project. :k:

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Re: Biogas Plant in Karachi

^ Well, that obviously is a good project. I was asking who initiated it. I couldn't find it on Internet.

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Pakistan needs alternative sources of energy. We can not rely on petroleum. So such projects are step in the right direction. Governments should support such projects, and implement them everywhere in Pakistan.

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HI Guys, Thanks for the comments on the Biogas Plant at Landhi, Karachi.

There has been much written about the project by various parties but here is the current status.

As previously mentioned, Landhi/Bin Qasim Cattle Colony, near Karachi, has 350-400,000 Buffalo in 1500+ farms in an area of around 3km2. They produce 7-8,000 tons per day of dung which at present is distributed on streets, fields, streams, lagoons and eventually in the sea.

The health and environmental problems caused are unthinkable, and will be removed by the project.

At present the farmers spend money, and used large amounts of water flushing, dumping or having the dung taken away, the plant will buy the dung, injecting over Rs300 million into the local economy, as well as providing up to 400 new jobs for locals.

Landhi Biogas & Fertiliser is a private initiative, that will collect the dung from each of the farms twice each day by tractor/trailer and take it a couple of kilometres to the plant. There, anaerobic digestion technology provided by British specialist HiRAD Bioenergy will convert it to Organic Fertiliser and Biogas, The biogas will be used to generate 24MWe of electrical capacity.

Because this project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will earn CER's (Certificates of Emissions Reduction) under the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism, that will be sold to Western countries to offset some of the $98m cost of the project.

The promoters of the project are a Pakistan/New Zealand/UK partnership.

Stage 1 of the project is an 8 ton per day demonstration plant that has been built in the colony, and is currently producing excellent biogas. Its purpose is to enable development of specific local machinery and logistics to ensure that when the main plant (with a capacity of 8,000 tons per day) is built, all the materials handling procedures are well developed using the actual dung, in the actual environment that it will have to cope with.

This project will be life changing for the people of the area, in health, Environment and financial terms.

During consultations with local people and organisations, it was decided that the project would also address two of the many local problems.

The women most urgent need was for a 20 bed Maternity hospital whcih we have agreed to provide.

The farmers urgently require, and we have agreed to provide, a dedicated laboratory to ensure that animal feed, health and reproductive issues can be addressed locally and at low cost. This may have prevented the large loss of animals last year due to bad feed and other problems.

Your continued interest and support for the project is appreciated and I will keep Gupshop in the loop with ongoing progress.

As a long time resident of Pakistan, I know the huge potential of Renewable Energy in Pakistan and have confidence that this fine Nation can be energy independent from it own waste, crop residue and natural resources if there is a will to achieve this at government and private sector level.

Best regards

Robert D Orr
Landhi Cattle Colony Biogas & Fertiliser Project

[email protected]
[email protected]

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Re: Biogas Plant in Karachi

Roberto,

This is certainly a very interesting project. 24MW is impressive for bio gas. This could also be made in to an energy center where the waste heat from the generation plant could be used to provide hot water services to the farmers, that would up the rating of the CO2 saved.

I am certainly looking forward for this project to come online. Any idea when?

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Excellent news. Waste treatment in Pakistan is not a priority. Every major city and town should follow this example and setup bio-waste to fertilizer conversion facilities. At this moment most of bio-waste is dumped in the nearby streams, rives, or canals. In case of Karachi the waste goes to the Arabian sea.

Bio-waste or organic-waste from domesticated animals and humans can be a great source of natural fertilizer.

A minor byproduct of this process is a small of amount of methane gas. This low-pressure gas can be used in nearby homes or in small electric power plants. In either case burning of the gas produces heat. The heat in turn can be used for cooking or generating steam for the electric power turbines.

Thus it is a win win situation for the farmers. They get loads of good fertilizer for almost free (compared to synthetic fertilizers).

Most of the solutions are low tech. You need large wooden boxes to store the bio-waste and then let the nature and worms convert this waste into fertilizer.

One of the major issues is the "collection" of the bio-waste. In big cities indoor plumbing pushes this waste out to the treatment plants. This process taints the organic waste by mixing it with other non-organic waste. However small towns can help in keeping the organic waste separate from the non-organic household waste. Why? Luckily in small towns, we still have low-wage laborers collecting this waste from individual homes.

As is the case in Karachi milk farms, a fertilizer company would "pay" for the bio-waste and thus people will be motivated to keep it free from non-organic waste. Imagine people waiting for the bio-waste company worker in clean white lab coats, to show up with stacks of rupees as payment for "good" bio-waste.

In case of large milk farms like in Karachi, collections is relatively easy due to the large concentration of cows and buffaloes. Other posters are correct that the farmers and bio-waste "producers" will make money in the process.

In either case, it is the will of people and not the money that can make any project a success. So we all hope that the pilot project succeeds and the larger plant starts soon.

Just remember that the major output of these plants is the "all natural organic fertilizer" and cleaner environment. Such plants cannot and will not help in reducing electricity shortages.

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Now thats not entirely true is it. 24MW, generation capacity, 4kW per house meaning 6000 houses. Slightly more than a drop in the sea!!