KARACHI: A pilot project to produce electricity and fertilizer with biogas from the manure of over 400,000 cattle is expected to be up and running by June at the Cattle Colony in Landhi.

In its initial stage, the pilot project will produce 20 KV of electricity and seven tons of fertilizer on a daily basis. A plant has been installed through a public/private partnership, between the City District Government Karachi and a New Zealand-based firm, Empower Consultants Ltd.

The deal to set up a multi-purpose ‘waste-to-energy’ project at an estimated cost of 120 million dollars was signed July 24, 2006. It was agreed that the project would produce manure and natural gas (methane), which would be used as CNG or converted into 30 MW of electricity.

In the ceremony, City Nazim Mustafa Kamal had announced that the pilot project would be functional within six months, but, due to various reasons, it did not materialize. Now the New Zealand firm has set up a pilot project to test their technology.

Feroz Shah, National Engineering Corporation Director, the local partner of the New Zealand firm Empower Consultants Ltd, told Daily Times on Friday that the pilot project will be operational in June as work is in full swing with financial assistance from the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID).

He mentioned that the project was approved by the Pakistan’s Designated National Authority (DNA) last year and it had been submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to obtain carbon credits (CC). “The last meeting on carbon credits was held mid-April and queries are being solved to finalize the issue,” he said.

He also mentioned that, under the Kyoto Protocol, every country has to obtain carbon credits, which sets a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted by an industry. If the UNFCCC approves this project, it will produce one million tons of carbon dioxide every year, which will be converted to produce electricity.

Environmental experts have said that after this project becomes functional, environmental standards will also improve for land and marine areas, along with economic and social conditions of residents.

Besides this, hundreds of tons of cattle dung will be collected and converted into biogas and 1,400 tons of high-grade organic fertilizer daily. The electricity produced from the methane content of the biogas will either be supplied for local use or be sold to KESC.

Cattle Colony in Landhi was established in 1958 and is now being developed into one of the biggest cattle colonies in the country, where about 1,500 farmers are rearing around 400,000 cattle. These farmers provide milk and meat on a regular basis to the entire population of Karachi, but in the absence of proper waste procedures, they were being forced to dump 7,000 tons of cattle dung into the sea.

Reporter : mehdi akbarsefat

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Create date : 5 May 2008 15:25

Id : 3433

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