Dear team,
Jon, Dr. Wilkie and I have been in Pursat since Friday and we've been well on our way to assessing the areas. We're actually about to leave in a little to finally assess the villages which could just possibly be our potential target areas. Thursday was scheduled as a rest day, but we had adjusted to the jet-lag relatively well and so decided to see what there is to see in Phnom Penh. We visited the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, Russian Market, and the eye-opening Killing Fields to name a few. It definitely helped us obtain a better sense of Cambodia's past, both ancient and recent. On Friday we drove to Pursat and upon arriving, were able to briefly meet the whole SC family. We were able to see how it all works. It's much more complex than I expected, and it seems that the whole organization is very ambitious and everyone is very dedicated to the organization's goals.
On Saturday, we visited 3 digesters built through the National Biogas Program (NBP), a government program which installs underground, continuously fed half spherical digesters made of brick and cement for those families who qualify (enough funds, enough manure). One was being built and two were already built. Two were 4 cubic meters and one was 8 cubic meters. The both that were already built have been in operation for about 2 months, and both families state that they would never go back. For the families who have had them already constructed, one fed it with 4 cows and 2 pigs, while the other family fed theirs (8 cubic meters) with manure stemming from about 35 pigs. The latter actually had a surplus of biogas! These models worked very well from what we saw, and the families were impressed as well. Dr. Wilkie and Jon did the scientific fun stuff of testing pH, electroconductivity, and methane content while I sat and observed. The apprentice will become the master. However, this all comes to a cost. For even the smallest digester, a family still has to fork up $300, and so only the well off can qualify. This obviously does not meet our target audience, since rural Cambodians, according to Sok nay, definitely cannot afford this price. Although this may be the case, we know there is a seemingly solid program advancing here in Cambodia.
Yesterday we checked the markets here in Pursat, and concluded that there are ample supplies to build pretty much whatever we wanted, not including polyethylene bags.
This morning we met with the government official heading the NBP for the Pursat province and got a boatload of very useful information. The program has reached the Pursat province recently, beginning in October of last year. Although only 21 digesters have been built in Pursat, over 8,000 have been built in all of Cambodia through the NBP. We received the breakdown of cost for the digesters including materials, equipment, and labor, and even got ourselves some souvenirs to bring back to the states (a couple rice cookers, pressure meters, biogas stoves, biogas lamps, etc). There is plenty more information that we can fill you all in on once we meet up to debrief in the fall.
While it was certainly important to see how biogas is already being implemented in Cambodia, our assessment of the villages themselves is what will allow us to come to our final conclusions on how to move forward with this project. One thing to note is that Sok nay has visited plastic bag digesters in another province which have failed, and state reasons for failure being maintenance (have to be replaced once or twice a year), disruption by animals (chickens making nests, cats having their own fun), and poor accumulation of waste. Just something to consider while we search for the best solution for this project.
I'm sure there is much that I have forgotten, but you will be filled in once we all get back. I'll update again as necessary. Hope all your summers are going well!
David
