ENERGY ALTERNATIVES: RENEWABLE
ENERGY AND ENERGY CONSERVATION
TECHNOLOGIES
Bio Energy from Animal Residues :
Livestock :
Livestock are an important component of an agro ecosystem.
For instance, livestock provide the critical energy input to
the crop lands required for ploughing, threshing and other
farm operations. Animal dung provides essential nutrients
required for soil fertility and crop yields in the form of
organic manure . Data collected from respective Taluk's
Veterinary Department regarding livestock population.
Livestock density (cattle and buffaloe), talukwise in Kolar
district is given in Table 1.
Table 1: Talukwise density (number of villages in each range) in Kolar District:
Taluk | < 0.5 | 0.5 - 1 | 1 - 1.5 | 1.5 - 2 | 2 - 2.5 | > 2.5 |
Bagepalli |
Bangarpet | 138 | 114 | 70 | 33 | 12 | 23 |
Chikballapur | 100 | 65 | 22 | 26 | 14 | 27 |
Chintamani | 140 | 121 | 69 | 42 | 17 | 19 |
Gauribidnur | 81 | 81 | 37 | 18 | 7 | 13 |
Gudibanda | 41 | 28 | 15 | 9 | 5 | 8 |
Kolar | 132 | 130 | 70 | 15 | 15 | 0 |
Malur | 143 | 123 | 57 | 18 | 11 | 13 |
Mulbagal | 160 | 96 | 54 | 17 | 6 | 13 |
Sidalghatta | 140 | 49 | 35 | 13 | 5 | 48 |
Srinivaspur | 151 | 92 | 47 | 22 | 9 | 27 |
This shows that in Kolar taluk 132 villages have an average
density less than 0.5 (livestock/hectare), 130 villages have
density in the range 0.5 - 1.0, 70 villages have a density
1.0 -1.5, while remaining 30 villages have density greater
than 1.5.
Quantity of the dung yield per cattle varies from place to
place - It is seen that dung available per animal (cattle) is
about 3-7.5 kg/adult animal, buffaloes 12-15 kg, stall fed
buffaloe about 15-18 kg, hybrid ones about 15-18 kg. By
considering lower figures (such as 3 kg per animal for cattle,
12 kg/animal for buffaloes), total dung available is about
3,71,991 kg/day. With the assumption of 0.036 m3 of biogas
yield per kg of cattle/buffaloes dung, we estimate that total
quantity of gas available(if all is used for biogas) is about
13,391 m3/day. It is estimated that per capita requirement
of gas is about 0.34-0.43 m3/day for domestic purposes. Which
means, that gas generated by animal dung is sufficient to
meet the requirement of 19.62% of total population of Kolar
taluk.