Bijli Wali Bhens

According to a Daily Times news report, 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.

The project has been submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to obtain carbon credits (CC). 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.

Poor cows, they have been supplying milk since time immemorial, now they have to feed into human demand of energy and have to provide the politically correct bio fuel and high performance fertilizers. If this program is successful, then cow dung will become as sought after a commodity as petrol and cows will be singing songs ala Naheed Akhtar soon,

Bijli bharee hai meray meray ang ang main

Jo mujhay chooay ga who jal jaye ga.