Summary: This third episode of The Organic Stream is dedicated to biogas generation in developing countries. Eleen Murphy interviews Winfried Rijssenbeek from FACT Foundation to discuss the setup of anaerobic digesters in these regions where biogas generation is more than a source of energy. Thank you to ESCAB for making this episode possible. QuantorXL® Drum Composting is a turnkey system that achieves full hygienization. Manure, sludge and bio-waste can be composted and turned into a resource, recycling many important nutrients back to nature. QuantorXL® is approved by the Swedish board of agriculture and fulfills EU regulations. TRANSCRIPT: Hi there once again and welcome to the show. As always, I'm your host Eleen Murphy and today we're in the Netherlands, talking to director and RE specialist of the Fact Foundation: Winfried Rijssenbeek. Winfried and the FACT foundation work closely with local partners all over the developing world to help set-up and educate communities about biogas systems. So for this show, we'll be focusing solely on biogas in developing countries. Topics will include: the types of organics used for production, why biogas systems are not yet a staple in developing countries, and framing biogas as more than just a source of energy. Lots of great topics to sink our teeth into, so stay tuned! EM: So the FACT Foundation provides biogas solutions for communities in developing countries, but also provides training, knowledge and support. You have partners across the globe that you work with, and you're based in the Netherlands, is that correct? WR: That’s correct. And there’s the Wageningen University, it’s the Agricultural University of the Netherlands and it’s quite well known. EM: Right and could you tell me a little more about FACT and the work that you do? WR: I will. We started in 2005 and this FACT Foundation was established by the late Professor Kees Daey Owens, who was first a renewable energy specialist in the Netherlands. So he found out that, yes indeed, developing countries need energy as well. So he decided to establish a foundation, and so in 2009 after Kees has ceased, we got a program developed in which we tested many different types of bioenergy projects. EM: Cool, and what kind of things did you test? WR: We started with bioethanol, and we looked at residues (for example cassava peels) and turning that into bioethanol so that people could have either cooking fuel or transport fuel. So we tested bioethanol, we tested biodiesel based on vegetable oils, and we also tested gasification based on wood residues, and we tested biogas. About four technologies were into our portfolio in the Deon program, and we tested that with different partners. Partners in Panama, in Peru, in Uganda et cetera, et cetera. So then, after some three years of doing this, we came to the conclusion that if there’s anything ready for a market, then it is biogas. And biogas seems to be the most easy. The most in installing it, the most easy in operating it. And this is very simple, Eleen: biogas is all about life, and it’s a biological system and to be honest, everybody who can handle a cow, can handle a biogas installation. EM: Hm, so if biogas is such a great solution, why isn't it more popular or well known in developing countries? WR: Why is it not happening there? Because you have a supply and demand, and in the case of developing countries, the suppliers - they are not well informed, because they use maybe obsolete technologies or they have no updated knowledge in many cases. And on the demand side the thing is even worse because many of these people that have the production of organic waste streams, they don’t know about biogas. So they have no idea of that solution, and this is really a struggle that we have. On the one hand, the suppliers are not really customising their systems for the client. And the clients on the other hand don’t know about biogas,
