Sunday, March 17, 2013

Impacts of biodigesters in Tanzania

This new paper in Energy for Sustainable Development by Jeannette Laramee & Jenna Davis quantifies the differences in fuelwood use and CO2e emissions between Tanzanian households with and without domestic biodigesters.
Abstract: Despite substantial programmatic investment in domestic bio-digesters across sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, little empirical evidence has been published regarding the existence or magnitude of socioeconomic or environmental benefits accruing from bio-digester implementation. A cross-sectional study of 40 households in Arusha, Tanzania, suggests that bio-digester adoption has the potential to reduce fuel-wood use, energy-related expenditures, and time-costs of energy procurement; to lower CO2e emissions; and to increase farm incomes. No significant differences in synthetic fertilizer use were observed between households with and without bio-digesters. Domestic bio-digester investments were found to have a positive net present value across a wide range of discount rates. Further, we estimate that domestic bio-digester implementation at the country wide level in Tanzania could potentially access $80–$115 million annually in carbon emissions reduction (CER) financing through the Clean Development Mechanism.
Read the full paper here.



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