Tuesday (now Wednesday) Energy Blogging: What they were working on in Haiti
Posted by: Donna
Given that before the enormity of the tragedy in that occurred in Haiti yesterday, it was a profoundly poor and troubled place, I was interested in what, if any, energy projects were going on there. Turns out there is a pretty aggressive effort to expand access to basic services (like toilets), while converting trash and waste from the poorest slums in the Americas into biofuel.
A pilot program is being tested in one of the poorest slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of the poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti. In a place where the availability of basic resources is limited and sanitary conditions are appalling, the Brazilian NGO Viva Rio is widening access to what is considered in Haiti to be a luxury–toilets. Not only will the most impoverished have a sanitary alternative in terms of waste disposal, the project will allow them to benefit from the biogas that it produces.
Up until now, the sanitation options for the city’s poorest were rather limited. While the city does operate public toilets, the 10 cent charge to use them puts them out of reach for many residents in Port-au-Prince, and without alternative much of the waste is not properly disposed of. The toilets being built by “Viva Rio” will come with a 1 cent charge, but the real benefit will come from what happens next.
According to TVCiencia, the waste will be collected in a large pool, called a bio-digester–an infrastructure where bacteria transforms human waste into methane which can then be used as an energy source. This reaction can produce 50 cubic meters of biogas per day and can generate three thousand watts of electricity for 24 hours straight.
This picture is from Dec. 20th. 
The first priority is to get as much help to search and rescue, relief, and medical teams as possible.
Please be as generous as you can.
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Thank you again for bringing prioities to the forferont. These poor people who pretty much had basics, now have nothing.
The amazing Doctors Wtithout Borders got some of my dollars.
Brava on you!
I give up on spelling.