By Candis E. Krummel | President, Board of Directors
On May 8th through 11th, the TRL Biogas Digester Team made the journey across Guatemala -- from Santiago Atitlan to Copan, Honduras to visit fixed-dome biogas-producing digesters like we want to install in Santiago Atitlan.
Our host, Edy Omar, of Comisión de Acción Social Menonita (CASM), met us in the charming small city of Copan, famous for its exquisite Maya ruins. While we, too, were eager to see the ruins while in Copan, our important objective was to meet the owners of the digesters, learn from the families and see for ourselves the size and details of construction.
These digesters were installed in the early 2000’s under the auspices of CASM, with the collaboration of the Cesar Parras from Centro Cristiano Lavastida in Santiago de Cuba. Unfortunately, one digester was located in an area where the road conditions made it impossible for our van to get there and the other had been irreparably damaged during road construction adjacent to the digester, after over eight years of successful use. Still, seeing an actual fixed dome biogas digester is an opportunity not to be missed -- to be able to visualize how it will fit into a space and learn from the family about the challenges and how it enhanced their lives.
Jose owns the digester we saw. Although he was not present, his wife, Sara, and mother, Zoila, shared their experiences with the digester, along with Edy who was the lead on this project. Their main reason for installing the digester was to handle manure from their cows and mule in a sustainable manner, while producing methane gas for cooking. They had already been using a type of digester where the gas is stored in a long, plastic balloon but had found that the plastic inflatable storage was not durable. The fixed dome biogas digester looked like a more sustainable system.
We learned that the users must take into consideration the balance of nitrogen (fecal material) with the carbon (plant material) fed into the digester. It is also advisable to put a transparent roof over the digester to avoid saturation due to rainfall. Within eight days the digester generated cooking gas, because they had “jump-started” the process by inoculating the slurry with the microbiome from their former biogas system. We’ll need to use bovine manure at first. We need an 4m x 4m space to install it. It took five men working two weeks to complete the construction.The quality of materials is of vital importance.
Although I had visited Santiago de Cuba in 2018 to see these digesters in operation, the team needed a hands-on experience to be able to properly design TRL’s program -- both from the standpoint of community involvement and acceptance as well as the actual construction. The visit also strengthened our relationship with Edy, whose collaboration in TRL’s project has been vitally important. Edy was supported by Cesar of the Cuban project I visited. We are hopeful that both of these experts will be present for our first construction, as well as the community training workshop in Santiago Atitlan.
After a final day in Copan spent exploring the marvelous Maya ruins, seeing the archeological museum’s expansive collection of amazing sculpture from the site, thrilling to the sight of flocks of brilliant yellow, red and blue macaws and soaking in exotic hot springs in the middle of the jungle, we were ready to endure the long drive home.
With the experience we gained in Honduras, we are that much closer to the reality of installing our own demonstration biogas digester. We are still short of our estimate of costs for the project and hope that your continued generosity will help us achieve that final goal. We believe biogas digesters can be a solution with multiple benefits, for combating the fecal pollution of Lake Atitlan.
Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm,
Sincerely, Candis
By Candis Krummel | President, Board of Directors
By Candis E. Krummel | President, Board of Directors
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