• What we do
  • The People
  • About Us
  • Why Innovation Africa
  • Contact Us
Innovation AfricaCreating the Future Today
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
  • The Genie in a Bottle: How Bottled Biogas Can Contribute to Reducing Kenya’s Dependence on Fossil Fuels

    February 6, 2015 Editor Comments Off on The Genie in a Bottle: How Bottled Biogas Can Contribute to Reducing Kenya’s Dependence on Fossil Fuels

    Growing up, I always dreaded to enter my grandmother’s kitchen in the village. She used firewood to cook: There was such a dark, thick smoke in the room that I couldn’t breathe or keep my eyes open. I really don’t know how my grandmother could spend hours and hours in there, every day, for so many years. And unfortunately, my grandmother is not an isolated case. More than 90 percent of Kenya’s population uses firewood, charcoal or kerosene for their daily cooking needs.

    I always dreamed that clean sources of energy would make Kenyans more independent and less exposed to the serious health risks posed by fossil fuels. In rural areas, most women like my grandmother rely on firewood; its consumption not only depletes our forests but also emits hazardous smoke that causes indoor pollution and eventually respiratory illness. In areas where firewood is scarce, women have to use cow dung as fuel, an option possibly even worse in terms of pollution. Urban areas are affected too: The poor rely mostly on charcoal, another biomass that has the same negative effects and health risks of firewood.

    Cleaner fuel options have already been developed but are often too expensive or too difficult to transport across the country to be adopted by a large part of the population, especially by the 40 percent of people at the base of the pyramid.

    So what can be done? How can we make clean fuels more affordable and accessible?

    I first heard about bottled biogas when I visited a “green” slaughterhouse in Kiserian, Kenya. I was really impressed: My dream of a cleaner, more affordable and easily accessible fuel was right there before my eyes.

    The Keekonyoike Slaughterhouse found an innovative way to produce affordable biogas and package it for distribution all around the country. Using a special bio-digester, this business can turn blood and waste from a community-based Maasai slaughterhouse into biogas for cooking. To facilitate transport, the firm stores the fuel in recycled cylinders and used tires, reducing even further the environmental impact of the operation. Just to give me a better idea of the “green” potential of his business, the manager told me that this first biogas plant is expected to cut methane emissions by more than 360,000 kilograms per year (the equivalent of almost 2,000 passenger vehicles).

    Indeed, “bottled” biogas (biogas compressed into a cylinder) has huge potential in Kenya: Farmers can directly produce it, recycling the waste from their farms; can use it for their cooking needs; and, thanks to the bottling process, can sell the excess on the local market, generating income while saving the environment.


    The Genie in the Bottle

    Keekonyokie is a company that began operations in 1982. It runs an abattoir that slaughters about 100 cows per day to meet the meat demand in Nairobi and its environs. In 2008, with the support from GTZ, the company constructed two 20-foot-deep biogas digesters that would help manage the abattoir waste, which was becoming a menace and a health hazard. Within a short time, the biogas being produced from the digesters was more than the company could absorb. The company managers started thinking of compressing and bottling the excess biogas, but they needed support to test the technical and commercial viability of their idea.

    When infoDev’s Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) opened its doors in October 2012, Keekonyokie was one of the first companies to be admitted.

     

    Go to Source

    Related Posts

    • Planning For Large Scale Solar Energy System in Saudi ArabiaPlanning For Large Scale Solar Energy System in Saudi Arabia
    • Lessons from Morocco’s solar initiative on sustainable energyLessons from Morocco’s solar initiative on sustainable energy
    • Biofuel: Africa’s new oil?Biofuel: Africa’s new oil?
    • Scaling Your UX Strategy
    • Entrepreneurs’ Decision-Making Under Different Levels of Uncertainty: The Role of EmotionsEntrepreneurs’ Decision-Making Under Different Levels of Uncertainty: The Role of Emotions
    • Tanzania: 4G LTE Technology to Transform BusinessTanzania: 4G LTE Technology to Transform Business
    Sovrn
    Share

    Categories: BioTech, Feature Articles, World Bank PSD

    Tags: biogas plant, fossil fuels, Kenya’s population

    Tumbleweed rolls through West African resorts: Ebola and tourism crisis management Empowerment Strategies for Ideation through Online Communities

    Comments are currently closed.

Subscribe to our stories


 

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions September 21, 2020
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics August 3, 2020
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey! August 3, 2020
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic August 3, 2020
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations August 3, 2020

Categories

Archives

Popular Post-All time

  • A review on biomass-based... 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt ge... 671 views
  • Prize-winning projects pr... 646 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 602 views
  • Test Your Value Propositi... 523 views

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations
  • SME Innovation: 10 Priorities for Support Post-COVID-19 
  • Africa RISING Annual Progress Report 2018 – 2019 now available
  • Fodder beet feed supplementation delivers dairy success for Ethiopian farmers
  • Using theory of change for outcome-oriented research
  • Africa RISING partners publish soil fertility management guidebook

Tag Cloud

    africa African Agriculture Business Business model Business_Finance Company Crowdsourcing data Development East Africa economics Education Entrepreneur entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship ethiopia ghana Health_Medical_Pharma ict Information technology Innovation kenya knowledge Knowledge Management Leadership marketing mobile Mobile phone nigeria Open innovation Organization Research rwanda science Science and technology studies social enterprise social entrepreneurship south africa Strategic management strategy tanzania Technology Technology_Internet uganda

Categories

Archives

  • A review on biomass-based hydrogen production for renewable energy supply 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt gender inequality? 671 views
  • Prize-winning projects promote healthier eating, smarter crop investments 646 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Your Big Data Innovations in Agriculture 602 views
  • Test Your Value Proposition: Supercharge Lean Startup and CustDev Principles 523 views

Copyright © 2005-2020 Innovation Africa Theme created by PWT. Powered by WordPress.org