LPM 121: Fodder Production and Grassland Management (1+1)

ENERGY VALUE -BIOGAS PRODUCTION

• Biogas will make a convenient alternative to alleviate the energy crisis in the farm sector including farmers' households, apart from providing a good quality manure devoid of viable seeds of weeds.
• Biogas is generated through the anaerobic digestion of organic wastes mainly cattle dung. An average Indian farm family normally has two or three cattle for basic agricultural operations.
• The dung from these animals can be efficiently used. Increased popularization of biogas plants has led to about 16 lakh family - type biogas plants in India, starting from a meagre 1000 plants approximately in 1972-73. In Tamil Nadu state alone there are about 1. 5 lakh number of biogas plants.

Availability of dung and scope of bio gas plants in Tamil Nadu

Type of animal	No. in Million	Dung / day/animal (kg)	Total (million kg/day)	Gas Production
				Rate m3/kg	Million m3/kg
White cattle	13.6	10	136.0	0.04	5.44
Black cattle	3.2	15	48.0	0.04	1.92
Sheep	5.5	2	11.0	0.04	0.44
Goat	5.2	2	10.4	0.04	0.42
Pigs	0.7	1.5	1.0	0.07	0.07
Poultry	18.2	0.1	1.8	0.06	0.11
			208.2		8.40

• In Tamil Nadu alone, from about 208 million kg of dung available every day, it is possible to produce about 8.40 million m­­3 of biogas per day. But only 7% dung is utilised for biogas production by about 1.5 lakh biogas plants of 4 m3 capacity each requiring 100 kg of dung per day.
• There is a lot of scope for more bio gas plants and as such, the Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources of the Union Government is encouraging the Indian house holds particulary in the rural areas to install the bio gas plants.
• Apart from cattle dung, wastes from poultry, piggery, sericulture, goat -husbandry, crop and field wastes and nightsoil are yet to be used in large quantities.