Alternate Fuel Sources For Indigenous People - Cow Dung Cake

Here we take a closer look at the applications of the cow dung cakes as fuel for rural South Asian countries. We will take an engineering perspective at this fuel source by looking at social, economical and environmental indicators. Social Aspect: According to reports, dung cake making creates 1.

1 jobs/ton in a day; however, using the dung for fuel and electricity generation combined with compost making for bio gas plants at an industry scale for a country like India would reduce the number to 0.9/ton. This means that the local business of making these cakes can be harmed.
In order to operate bio-gas plants, one does not need to perform the time consuming job of molding cow manure into a cake. Subsequently and quite naturally, the number of people to simply collect the dung would then be lower than the number of people required for shaping it into a cake per ton.

This accounts for the threshold not meeting the indicator value.
One way more jobs can be created is if the government or the private industries employ the people who have lost their jobs on their new renewable plants.

This can not only equalize the indicator with the threshold, but even push the threshold much higher than expected. Economic Aspect: Some reports give the comparison of cost per year of dried cow dung cake as fuel vs fresh cow dung as bio-gas. The threshold or the optimum value is $8.
57/year.

This value is the cost per year if cow manure is used as bio-gas for fuel.
On the other hand, the indicator value is $14/year.

This tells us that cakes as fuel is much more expensive than cow manure as renewable fuel source.
Due to the arsenic and other harmful chemicals released through burning cakes, the health costs for an average family amounts to $14/year. Whereas, an average renewable plant for indigenous and rural house costs around $257 with a life span of 30 years This amounts to $8.
57/year degradation.
Thus, due to health costs alone and cheap means of switching to bio-gas, cow dung cakes as fuel are more expensive, therefore the indicator value does not meet the threshold.
Educating the indigenous and rural societies on how to avoid inhalation of harmful gases from burning these cakes could help meet the threshold. Environmental Aspect: The indicator and threshold value show the comparison of carbon-dioxide released by cow dung cake vs bio-gas.
The amount of carbon-dioxide released due to burning dung cakes is around 522g/meal; whereas, bio-gas releases only 6g of carbon-dioxide/meal.

This makes bio-gas one of the most optimum solutions for the environment. This is because when utilizing cow dung as bio-gas, methane is captured and used for combustion, whereas cow dung cakes are used as solid fuels as they are burned to ashes releasing tremendous amount of carbon-dioxide.
Government schemes to purchase cow dung cakes in return for clean bio-gas is a strategy to meet the threshold value.
A responsible government would help turn irresponsible burning of cakes into cow dung as renewable gas.

Here we have taken closer and brief look at the implications of cow dung and how it can instead be used for bio-gas plants for safer use of fuel.

It is up to the governments of the countries to implement the infrastructure for bio-gas plants and educate the people about the risks ensued with burning cow dung cakes as solid fuels.