Empowering

Empower’s meeting for this week was held on Sunday 27^th January 2008. The meeting was attended by Shanil, Muniba, Leesa and Haaris. The other members were unable to make it for the meeting. During the meeting, it was officially decided to join Arc UNSW i.e. register Empower as UNSW’s one of the new clubs. Haaris will be responsible for completing the process of registration. He will be having meeting with Sophie Harmington who oversees the registration of new societies with ARC, on Tuesday 29^th January 2008 to finalize the details and process of the registration. The registration would be completed by Friday 1^st February 2008.

During the meeting, Muniba was delegated a new task. She has been made responsible for developing an Engineering panel at UNSW. The panel would consist of postgraduate students and lecturers of the University. The panel will act as resource for consultation for UOM. The UOM will be providing the quote for the project within this week. The team would be formally confirming the village chosen by UOM over the next two weeks and the team structure of UOM would also be finalized.

Empowering Others To Achieve Success

On the sponsorship side, e-mails have been sent to KPMG, PWC, Caltex, Shell, BHP Billiton and Dilmah. Energy Australia has already excused itself since it doesn’t finance or support programs outside Australia. It is also expected that 50% of the funding will be met through Sri – Lankan sources so that the project's groundwork can be staretd. Shanil is looking into securing the financing from Sri – Lankan sources and in that regards, he will be contacting Uni – Lever and Dilmah in Sri – Lanka. He will also be updating the project brief and power point slides based on the details provided by UOM.

Meetings and More Meetings

Empower had two meetings in a row, one Admin meeting on Sunday and one sponsor meeting today (Monday). The admin meeting was attended by administrators of the project; Leesa, Shanil and Muniba in which the three discussed the project strategic direction. During the meeting it was decided to look into the University of Moratuwa’s (UOM) offer of undertaking the installation of project since they have consulted the volunteer undergraduate and postgraduate students who are willing to implement it. The most likely possibility is giving the go ahead to UOM. Energy Forum would no longer be in the picture because of their high quotes for the project.

At the moment, we are only waiting for an official quote for the project by UOM which is expected by this Wednesday. The name of the village will also be finalized by next week. On the financing part, the project brief has been e-mailed to various multinationals and Australian companies that include Procter and Gamble, BP, Energy Australia and Caltex. Some more companies would be added to the existing list.

Today’s meet up was more of a formal since three of the project members; Shanil, Leesa and Haaris had series of meetings with University Office bearers. The first meeting was with Associate Professor of Australian School of Business (ASB); Prem Ramburuth. During our meeting with her, we walked her through the project; she was very much fascinated by the idea and suggested us to affiliate the project with ARC, the university’s official student’s representative body. She also suggested some names within ASB to identify the sources of funding for the project. The next meeting was at Faculty of Built environment and we got some good leads over there. The leads would be explored further by Shanil.

The last meeting was at ARC with Sophie Harrington who oversees the registration of new societies with ARC. She provided us with all the necessary documentation for registering and also told us the benefits of becoming a part of it. After the meeting, it has been decided to initiate the process of membership with ARC but at the same time seek financing from companies as a private project. ARC won’t be able to offer anything before March which would delay the project. However, keeping in view the long term perspective, joining ARC would be beneficial for all the project members.

First Meeting of the Year

Empower UNSW had its first meeting of the year yesterday. The meeting was attended by Shanil, Leesa, Wallace, Gong, Johnson, Jessica and Annie. The team welcomed its new member Haaris Ali, who officially joined as journalist of the project after a long delay. The other project members were unable to attend the meeting due to their various personal commitments.

During the meeting, the issues related to financing, a trip to Sri-Lanka and allocation of tasks were discussed. The local partners of the project in Sri-Lanka are University of Moratuwa (UOM) and Energy Forum who would be identifying a village for setting up of the project. So far, UOM has suggested a village called Kurunegla which is three hours drive from capital, Colombo. The team is also contemplating on who should be managing the project i.e. either UOM or Energy Forum. The decision in that regard would be made within a week.

Team Having a Chat after the meeting

While back in Australia, the project team members assigned to identify and follow up with prospective sponsors is in contact with various companies and University of New South Wales as well. The University would be informing the team hopefully by this week or next week while other sources are yet to reply. So far, Five Hundred Australian Dollars have been managed by one of our project members through her personal efforts. It was also decided in the meeting to stop working in teams as it hasn’t turned out to be really effective. From now on, each member would be responsible for an individual task. The details of the each member’s tasks are as follows

Haaris : Will be our Journalist. Responsible for uploading the blog with pictures, videos and articles.

Olivia: Photography and video.Will pass the material to Haaris.

Dev, Pattiya and Johnson: Work on survey and develop specific questions individually and then coordinate with the team.

Jessica, Annie and Wallace: E-mail and follow up calls to prospective sponsors individually and then inform the team.

Shanil: Leading the project and coordinate with all the stakeholders.

Gong: To look at alternative rural finance organiztions.

Leesa: Send draft contact letter to Jessica, Wallace and Johnson. Follow up ASB and look into partnering with another part of the University. Collect everyone's availabilities for meetings next session.

Pooling Some Talent together; Wallace & Gong

What is Biogas anyway?

So... the Empower project is going to introduce a renewable source of electricity to a rural community. What does this mean exactly? What is biogas? How does it all work? What's all the fuss about?
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What is Biogas? How is it made?

Biogas consists mainly of a naturally produced gas called Methane but also contains Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen Sulphide and Hydrogen Gas. Biogas is produced as a product of the decomposition process. When any type of organic waste (e.g. Manure, Vegetable Waste, Fats, Dead Plants) are kept in anaerobic conditions (without oxygen), bacteria that thrive in these conditions break the waste down. This process results in the production of Biogas and a solid slurry that can be used as an organic fertilizer.

Therefore, the principle of a Biogas digester is to replicate these anaerobic conditions and create a vessel that can continuously produce Biogas. Biogas is versatile as it can be used as a cooking fuel and can also be used for heating and electricity (which the Empower Project aims to do).

What is a Biogas Digester? What does it look like?

Source: Institute of Science in Society

Most modern Biogas Digesters allow for waste to be continually fed and range from being specific with regard to the waste input (grass, rice paddy) to being versatile (human waste, animal waste, plant matter, oils). Different types of waste produce different ammounts of Biogas upon decomposition. The community needs to be trained on how to maintain the right levels of waste to produce the required capacity of biogas for electricity generation. The actual structure is a simple sealed vessel (often concrete) as illustrated above. The main bit of maintenance requires the built up slurry/sludge to be removed (typically after 6 months to a year). This as mentioned, is a good organic fertilizer.


Electricity?

The Biogas that is produced from this digester is collected and sent to a generator. These generators are often commercially available and run on fuels such as Diesel, Kerosene and Petrol. Relatively simple modification can allow an Electricity Generator to run on Biogas instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDF0azPGvM

Source: cobweb.edn.purdue.edu

So why Biogas?

There are numerous advantages to using Biogas as a source of energy. Reliance on depleting fossil fuels contributes to Global Warming. As an alternative to these depleting, damaging sources of energy, we are forced to shift towards renewable, sustainable sources that have a limited effect on the earth and its atmosphere.

Wind and Solar Power are also viable renewable energy sources. However they are expensive to set up in most rural communities and require specific conditions. Biogas in comparisson, is cheaper and more versatile. The temperatures in tropical countries are ideal for faster anaerobic digestion.

Furthermore, Biogas production is carbon neutral. Only a comparatively small amount of Carbon Dioxide is produced as a result of digestion and this can be easily absorbed by surrounding trees and foliage. The waste sludge can be used as fertilizer.

In fact the production of biogas utilizes waste that would otherwise pollute the surroundings and add to the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere by decomposing under normal conditions.

Finally, the Empower project seeks to create employment and communal trade in relation to how the digester is fed (farmers supplying waste, people maintaining the digester and generator).

Shanil

The project to date...

Hello and welcome readers!

Although we've just started this blog now in January the Empower project has been gathering momentum at the University of New South Wales since mid 2007.

Currently the team is working with it's Sri Lankan contacts, The University of Moratuwa and the Energy Forum, to plan the development and installation of the biomass unit.

We're also researching in preparation for the second part of the project, specifically looking at business models to introduce around the electrification unit and the possibilities of using microcredit to sustain the businesses run by the villagers.

Another important task underway is the search for key sponsors and other interested parties.

Stay tuned for more developments!

Leesa

Welcome

Welcome Team Members and Readers,

From here onwards all updates on the project( including photos and videos) will be published on this blog. I believe this will enrich the experience, improve communication and above all serve as a diary of sorts for the project itself. Please feel free to contribute with articles and comments.

Regards,
Shanil Samarakoon
Project Leader