Nepal is home to around 30 million people, many of whom live on less than $2 a day. Electricity facility is limited to only privileged households. Around 60 % of Nepalese households rely on large amount of woods for daily cooking needs. Annually, a person uses upto 2000 pounds of wood leading to large number of trees being cut down. An estimated 20 percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation and degradation, including a significant portion that stems from fuelwood consumption.

 

Biogas-powered cookstoves comes as a perfect solution for the problem. Biogas is an alternative fuel produced by the fermentation of animal and human waste by naturally occurring bacteria in the absence of Oxygen. It is composed primarily of Methane and Carbon Dioxide and can be used as an alternative to wood for cooking and heating. Various INGOs are providing funding to families who do not own a toilet to attach one to the biogas plant to increase outputs and improve household sanitation and health. The used waste or slurry once the biogas has been generated can be used for fertilizer to increase agricultural productivity and increase income for nepali farmers.

 

There are lots of benefits of this project. They are:

 

·         Eliminates smoke from the house

·         Decreasing breathing illness and death related to inhalation of polluted smoke.

·         Reducing climate change and loss of forests.

·         Providing microloans to the community.

·         Protecting critical habitat for wild animals.

·         Economical and Cheap

For local families, it reduces life-threatening illness from smoke inhalation, offers new forms of finance to invest in needed infrastructure, conserve local habitat and protect threatened species like tigers, rhinos and elephants. Around 69 % of national households still rely on solid-fuel for cooking today. Cooking fuel choices are heavily constrained by accessibility, demographic and socio-economic factors.