What are the free methods to cook food at home without any cost and impact to the nature?
LPG comes with an cost and still it is being promoted. About 700 million people in India live in households that cook every day with simple chulhas using locally gathered biomass for fuel. This results in substantial air pollution exposures in and around the households but is also an important contributor to outdoor air pollution- estimated to be responsible for more than 25% of the country’s outdoor air pollution. These exposures are estimate to result in the premature death of more than 8 lakh Indians each year, with the greatest risk for women and young children. In addition, gathering biomass fuel often requires many hours per week that could be put to more productive activities and in some parts of the country contributes to land degradation and deforestation.
https://startup.ongc.co.in/wps/wcm/connect/ongcstartup/apply_now/solar_chulha_challenge
Below are some of the popular known solutions to provide free cooking gas
https://ac.els-cdn.com/S187661021732324X/1-s2.0-S187661021732324X-main.pdf?_tid=5fe9dab3-6d03-4b9a-b7cd-32b2031e7a80&acdnat=1546174150_91e5d70a0c369a2255d30e70ce985d3b(1) Biogas/natural gas development can be integrated with strategies to better use home waste and improve sanitation as well to reduce indoor air pollution and greenhouse gases. Challenges (a) cost, (b) availability of material to produce the required gas , (c) gestation time, (d) pipeline cost, (e) operations (f) maintenance (g) Social cultural barrier to use gas generated from dung
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517306869
(2) Solar based induction stoves (DC) Solar cooking involves converting and controlling the sun’s heat and light energy on site to cook food. Being clean and not requiring the gathering or purchase of fuel, solar energy also has the attractions of being renewable and locally available.(refer the below link)
Challenges (a) New technology (b) cost (c) requirement of sunlight (d) space (e) no ability to store energy
Which places does this problem impact and what segment of people are impacted Use of non renewable sources to sustain life is a major problem across the globe. Hence, good solutions can be implemented across the globe. However the primary requirement is in the developing countries which dont have adequate access of free natural resources to help low to medium income group of people to cook with minimal cost (Instead of offering subsidy)
Why this problem has not been solved till date:
(1) There are multiple innovations which are taking place in this sphere all around the world. However, awareness and importance to take this simple and very effective initiative has not gathered enough momentum to take off.
(2) Awareness among the people to use alternative free fuels instead of LPG
(3) Support form government and institutions to innovate are limited, however are trying to improve the effort in this direction.
(4) Dependent on institutions and governments to fund and install or provide the product.
(4) No knowledge of the impact by not using alternative free fuel (this could convert the waste in to highly productive fuel and manure)
Why significant efforts to promote biogas has failed?
(1) Leakage in the drums, the plants stopped producing gas, there was a shortage of cattle and thus organic waste, or the plant collapsed after construction.
(2) on an average a plant survived for 4.1 years of operational life, a big setback to the alternative energy program.
(3) Dependent on government to sustain: Although the government offered to share half the cost of repairs with the beneficiaries,
(4) Maintenance: Old and non-functional plants were not repaired and put back in use.
(5) People are usually not short of manure as on an average they had two cattle per family.
(6) Financially weaker sections did not get benefited from this scheme as benefits would have meant a lot more to them than those financially better off
http://www.hummingbirdproject.org/regions/india/indias-ambitious-biogas-program-in-question/
Provide your solutions which can solve as many challenges listed below
(1) Low cost of installation or Low cost to purchase the product.
(2) Solves the Social cultural barrier to use gas generated from dung without any disposal problems. ( if the innovations is based on dung)
(3) Low cost of production and maintenance
(4) Gestation time to produce gas should be minimal.
(5) Minimum requirement of material (availability of cattle dung when it is being used for other purpose or when there are few droppings or when dung cannot be collected)
(6) Requirement of water should be as low as possible.
(7) Option for Community based operations will be a plus ( so that group of people can leverage the benefits with less cost)
(8) Cooks both at night and during the day (24 *7)
(9) Can be used for all cooking processes (boiling, steaming, frying),
(10) Is safe and easy to use (Low risk)
(11) Is built with materials that are available easily and can be disposed of safely (environment friendly)
(12) Can be mass produced to achieve good quality control and economies of scale, and
(13) Does not require any special stove to cook
(14) Does not require battery to store the power for future usage.
(15) It should be odour less or minimal impact when it is opened.
(16) easy to repair
(17) Generates employment
In short: Require solutions for Low cost alternative products/systems (one time cost) which do not require any cost and easy to maintain for longer period of time to fulfill cooking needs of low to medium income group of people all around the world, without having any impact on nature.
- KKrishna Heda @krishnaheda
**Food for thought. **
Combining the innovations together we have come up with a structured solution which will solve multiple problems all together
Step 1) Use banana leafs (instead of plate) to eat your food. This will save resources, water and energy to wash your utensils ( direct savings). Put the banana leafs in the compost pit along with other kitchen and cow dung. This combination provides the maximum methane gase and an excellent manure for the plants.
Step 2) Instead of creating a biogas plant, dig a good pit like a big underground water storage tank or a septic tank. Provide a provision for dumping the waste and storage of gas similar to any biogas plant. Here the benefit is we hav reduced the raw material cost to construct a bio gas plant.
Step 3 ) Heating biogas digester is essential , especially during the winter. Solar energy-heated biogas digester is a facility that radiates heat by the solar thermal, which maintains the temperature of the biogas digester. The working principle behind this facility is the division of the traditional biogas digester into three parts, namely, raw material storage section, biogas slurry storage section, and anaerobic digestion section. We only heat the anaerobic digestion section to decrease the heating volume and reduce the heat dissipating surface, thereby saving energy. Solar energy is unstable, and the anaerobic digestion section needs to be maintained at its best temperature, thus, we control the raw material inlet at its optimum temperature. This biogas digester improves the anaerobic digestion condition and enhances gas production rate, which enables the efficient function of the digester during winter as well. When the sun is not visible for many days - use conventional power to heat up your bio gas plant to maintain the required temperature.
Step 3) Your high energy gas is ready for cooking and for other purposes like running your vehicles as well. It produces a very clean form of biogas, consisting of just methane and CO2, compared to biogas derived from other waste streams such as human sewage, piggery or feedlot waste which contains many different trace elements
the methane production process releases less noxious odours compared to that based on other feedstocks the yields are very high due to the easy fermentability of bananas
https://global.mongabay.com/news/bioenergy/2006/10/banana-biogas-to-power-heavy-duty.htmlThis process is very cheap, open for community operate, 24*7, safe, scalable, DIY, No battery, less odour compare to any other bio gas, minimal repair, low maintenance, solves social barrier to use bio gas for cooking.
Added advantage: It produces a high quality manure which can be used for your crops to grow fresh vegetables or any other crop you wish too.
- KIn reply tokrishnaheda⬆:Krishna Heda @krishnaheda
Fire from water. Hyd Gas is the brainchild of Reinwo Labs Pvt Ltd, a start-up company incubated at Startup Village, Kalamassery.
According to its co-founder Vimal Gopal, Hyd Gas is a gas cooktop that produces gas from water. When current is passed through the water stored inside the device, it gets converted into hydrogen and oxygen by the process of electrolysis. The hydrogen and oxygen thus released are passed to the burner through pipes. As there is no storage of gas, the product will be 100 pc hazard-free unlike LPG gas cylinders. The development of a compact household variant having the same size as any other gas stove and with the option of integrating LPG when there is a power outage or non-availability of water, is under consideration.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2015/mar/23/Fire-from-Water-Hyd-Gas-a-Cheaper-Alternative-to-LPG-732238.html