Gobar (Cow dung) Gas is not new to India. It was pioneered here in the 70's and adopted by individual families that owned cows mostly in Rural India. My Aunty who lived in the heart of Mangaluru had one since she had a pair of cows in her cowshed. The cows provided her enough milk for the household and her gobar gas plant produced enough gas to do all her cooking. Subsequently it no longer became economical to rear cows in the heart of the town. The gas plant now unused is still there.
All of a sudden the West has discovered "Gobar Gas" - see related Links below (1, 2), and it is taking off in a big way. A friend of mine would say that anything successful on a small scale becomes an attractive business proposition if it scales. Large utility companies like PG&E (3) in the US are entering this field and are planning to produce up to 3 billion ft3 of methane per year, enough to produce electricity for about 50,000 homes in central and northern California. Getting rid of cow dung used to be a problem for the dairy industry in the US, now they are realizing there is money to be made from the sludge – wealth from waste!
The Indian Diary Industry claims that India overtook the US in 1998 to become the world's #1 Milk producer (4 & 5). Since then the top two producers of milk has been either India or the US, with China being #3. Cow dung is not wasted in India. It is used as a fertilizer and as a cooking fuel. Other uses are for flooring and wall "plastering" of rural huts, and I've seen it being used as as a disinfectant for cleaning floors many years ago in my grandmother's house. Now it sells for upwards of Rs. 300 per tonne. Unlike the US there are competing uses for cow dung in India.
Besides milk and methane, another aspect overlooked and ignored by India, in its race to modernize is the fact that cows are the world's most efficient "mulching" machines! You feed them vegetable and organic waste and in about 24 hrs, you have fully processed rich fertilizer. It was Swami Chinmayanada who noted that there is an excellent way to deal with old cows and oxen and that is to let them graze in corrals, where they would trample/feed on organic waste and produce valuable manure.
Believe it or not people drink diluted cow urine for its medicinal effect. Cow urine and cow dung are used in some Ayurvedic preparations. Note this must come from cows of Indian breed only.
Cow urine mixed with other natural ingredients makes for an effective pesticide. (6)
And finally, for beef lovers, it turns out the best beef comes from retired bulls at least sixteen years of age! (7)
And so here we have in the land of the "sacred cow" a gem of an idea, which was known to the illiterate and enlightened villager. Educated agriculturists ignorant of "nature's ways" have paid no heed to this "natural gift". And to quote my friend again...it is all a matter of scaling this "natural gift" to make it a viable business venture that would serve a larger section of India's population.
Related Links:
1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/bovine_biogas_plant/
2. http://postcarboncities.net/node/444
3. http://www.eere.energy.gov/state_energy_program/project_brief_detail.cfm/pb_id=1167
4. http://www.indiadairy.com/ind_world_number_one_milk_producer.html
5. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-07/31/content_6005196.htm
6. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/11/21/stories/2003112102650100.htm
7. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1691115,00.html
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