Cooking With Gas

“The project exclusively targets low-income rural households in China’s Sichuan province, who are unable to participate in an ongoing public biogas promotion program without additional financial and technical support. These families exist on an average daily per capita income of slightly higher than one US dollar. The carbon revenues from this project supplement an existing government subsidy for digesters and allow participation for low-income rural households. A robust maintenance program with this project ensures long-term use and functionality of the digesters.

Dealing with waste of any kind is a stinky proposition that is unhealthy for the planet. This project has solved the financial and technical issues necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide co-benefits including improved health, sanitation, economic savings, and better crops.”

—Sid Yadav, Director of Project Research

Project Type: Technology-based Avoidance/Reduction

Carbon Standard: Gold Standard CDM

Vintage: 2016

Additionality: A financially more feasible alternative to the project activity such as an effluent pond, would result in higher emissions.

Permanence: The methane produced by the biogas digesters is captured and destroyed through use in a gas stove or gas-powered rice cooker.

Site Visit: November 2019

The Sichuan Household Biogas project builds methane digesters that break down human and animal waste to create clean methane gas, which is used for cooking. A biodigester is built beneath animal pens so human waste and animal manure flow directly into a brick digestion chamber. Inside the chamber, naturally occurring bacteria anaerobically digest the waste, producing the methane gas that is piped to the cookstove in the house. Using methane for cooking replaces burning coal or wood and avoids carbon emissions.

The project will reduce approximately 10 million tonnes of CO2e by providing 400,000 poor farmer households in Sichuan with climate-friendly biogas digesters and efficient, smoke-free cookstoves. The project delivers annual GHG emissions savings of about 822,520 tCO2e.

Other than the avoided carboned emissions, the Sichuan Household Biogas improves the living conditions for the animals by replacing the open manure pit with a system that washes the waste directly into the chamber. Open manure pits draw flies and risk overflowing. Additionally, since the digestion process is so effective, the byproduct is an organic fertilizer that farmers apply directly to their fields to improve crop quality. This compost saves money for farming families and provides an alternative income for families that choose to sell it.

• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 822,520 tonnes a year.
• Cuts the use of coal in households by 340,000 tonnes a year with clean, affordable, and convenient cooking fuel.
• Improves human health due to cleaner air for the family and improves household sanitation – particularly important since these rural families have limited access to health care.
• Generates extra income for families through savings on purchases of coal or firewood and the use and sale of self-produced organic fertilizer.
• Increases access to clean water since the risk of waste contamination of water resources is lowered due to proper waste storage.
• Improved animal welfare due to cleaner living conditions.
• Provides jobs and financial support in a region with an average per capita income of slightly more than US $400 per year.

• Rural farming families struggle to afford the expensive biogas digesters.
• After installation, the biogas digesters require ongoing financial and technical support for maintenance.
• Outreach to new families about program participation is an ongoing effort.

• There is no longer any need for me to buy charcoal for my cooking. – Owner, female 8-9 year-old digester
• The stable pits and lagoon were very smelly before and there were flies. Now with the digester we don’t have that problem any more. – Owner, female 7-8 year old digester
• I arise at 5 AM, and within several seconds the cooker starts to work so that I am able to boil water and cook rice before I go to the fields. – Owner, male 8 year old digester