NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Nget Loun’s rickety old thatched house is typical of Cambodia’s impoverished countryside, but it holds a surprise inside: a state of the art, environmental-friendly gas stove.

Off the grid as far as most utilities are concerned, her household and 29 others in this village get a steady supply of clean energy from human and animal waste, using a device that not only makes cooking less of a chore, but also keeps their gardens flourishing and helps save the forests.

At the center of the experiment is a device called a biological gas digester — or biodigester — which converts a byproduct of manure into cooking gas.
The technology has taken hold in other countries as a way to generate gas or electricity, and now an independent development group is hoping to spread it to Cambodia’s poor rural people.
Story found here.