COP26 – Can bioenergy make a difference?

[Music] hello everybody my name is john lovett i'm from the school of geography at the university of leeds and i've just got back from cop 26 in in glasgow to my my home here in the north york moors um and today what we're going to do is we're going to bring to you a session about bioenergy and as part of our cop 26 events at the university of leeds we've launched a a a future learned uh course on on sustainability and bioenergy and we'll show you a clip from that in in in just a moment with me today on the panel we've got uh people from a wide range of different countries we've got prof amit and sarah from vbu in india uh we've got uh anissa from uppi in indonesia and elizabeth from rdi in indonesia and mary susan from creek in uganda and i'll they will introduce themselves to you uh in just a moment behind the scenes we have uh jono who is uh uh going to run the uh the the the videos for us so um i will ask jono now if you could run the trailer for our bioenergy massive open online course donna please [Music] renewable energy can contribute to a more secure sustainable and economically sound future this course explores bioenergy one of the most diverse and readily available sources of renewable energy and looks into how it could be utilized to develop sustainable energy solutions in a wide range of communities you'll look at how the sun's energy is transformed into biomass and explore technologies that convert this into readily available clean energy the course also deep dives into the social issues associated with biomass combustion and is enriched with case studies from all over the world that consider the socio-economic and environmental implications of biogas and oil palm this skills-based course will enable you to put into practice the knowledge you've acquired by getting you to complete a feasibility study for introducing bioenergy technologies to a small rural community you'll also pick up tools and technical information to help you explore the topic further if you want to understand bioenergy and develop practical skills to implement its applications then join this course super thanks very much okay let's go around the uh the panel and uh everybody can introduce themselves um so ahmed and sarah can you can you tell us a little bit about yourselves please yeah thank you john i am professor amit a professor of plural management in bishop maharashtra university from india and we are conducting one international project in collaboration with university of leeds and uganda hello everyone yes i am shreya research scholar of department of lifelong learning and extension bishop i am doing my research under profession and we are also working for the um for the waveform project under professor amir thank you anissa can you can you introduce yourself to please thank you professor john lovett hello all of you my name anissa giovini asari i'm a lecturer at the geographic department university and indonesia so my research interest is informal science sustainability policy change and particularly during several years i studied about uh the palm oil sector also with professor john lopez thank you mary susan can you can you tell us about yourself thank you very much professor john um mary susan abou i'm the managing director of the center for research in energy and energy conservation in uganda and the center focuses on increasing access to modern types of energy and that includes a lot of interventions on bioenergy cooking technologies micro and macro bioenergy systems thank you thank you and finally elizabeth can you tell us about yourself in rdi hi everyone uh i hope you can hear me please uh just let me know if you cannot hear me i am from resilience development initiative indonesia so it's nice to be here my uh research is on biogas thank you john back to you okay thank you very much okay let's let's go around the the panel quickly and we'll well we'll ask the members about uh bioenergy in uh india indonesia and uganda so um profamit and sure can you tell us a little bit about how biomass and bioenergy is is used in india please yes so basically the biomass of bioenergy in india it has been like in the rural areas the mass is used extensively like rather than using the clean fuel like lpg liquid petroleum gas the biomass like firewood charcoal coal these things are used in an extensively in the rural areas in the urban areas the lpg penetration is much more than the rural areas so uh in our project also we are working for the for uh for increasing the the lpg penetration or the increasing the clean fuel penetration neck uh biogas solar wind energy in the rural area so that's for the the biomass the bioenergy utilization in the india so that's important that's great thank you very much indeed um anissa and elizabeth can you tell us a little bit about um bio energy in indonesia perhaps in easy you'd like to to start us off okay thank you professor john lawrence so yes uh indonesia actually has committed to provide energy through the national policy energy and we know and the policy highlights the importance of diversification and environmental sustainability including promoting the use of bioenergy and yes for the household household scale i think a coal down is usually used but i uh the source of bureau energy is also coming from palm oil for example and and there is also a waste from organic waste and and yes and so on maybe maybe uh yeah elizabeth can also explain more about the biogas i just uh want to uh add that this is a great opportunity because uh bioenergy although it has been promoted in indonesia there's a few courses that provide uh the range of bioenergy because it's very wide range of topics so yeah back to you john yeah okay thank you yeah yeah absolutely right i mean yeah you know anise has mentioned oil palm there as a source of bio energy which is a very controversial source of bioenergy but let's move now to mary susan mary susan can you introduce yourself and creak in uganda please and talk about bioenergy in in uganda how is it how is it used there i thank you professor john our in my country uh uganda bio energy is still the uh a most uh prevalent uh source of energy for cooking over 90 percent of the populace here is depending on on on on biomass or cooking mostly uh using wood fuel especially in the rural areas and also in the form of charcoal in the urban areas in the past years there have been efforts you know with our work at creek and stakeholders to see how to uh improve on the diffusion of more improved technologies uh even though uh we're using a biomass so the penetration of improved cooking technologies using gas gasification micro gas fires also using other alternative fuels like uncarbonized and carbonized briquettes has been increasing and we've seen an increase from 12 years ago to about 30 percent uh from the recent statistics from the bureau of statistics in the country so there's still a lot of potential to to to increase an alternative uh by energy fuels uh more appropriate technologies in the country thank you thank you very much elizabeth and sorry uh mary susan well and we'll talk about some of the the problems associated with different types of uh burning of biomass particularly the killer in the kitchen uh a little bit later uh in our program today um as i mentioned at the beginning i've just got back from cop 26 this week in glasgow and and cop 26 has just entered the second week and uh in glasgow countries from all over the world are meeting together to negotiate about how to mitigate and adapt to to to climate change and climate change in particular from what it called dangerous anthropogenic emissions and these are greenhouse gases that have been released uh primarily from the use of fossil fuels so uh one of the questions we can ask perhaps uh is how do human activities change the climate and does bioenergy play a role in mitigating and adapting to that dangerous anthropogenic interference and i'm going to ask jono just to show us a quick clip from our uh uh massive open online course on bioenergy uh to to to show how human activity causes that change jonah could you play the clip please the sun's radiant energy is filtered by the atmosphere of the earth both when it arrives and when it's reflected from the earth's surface high energy radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere before it reaches the earth's surface this is important for life on earth because it can damage dna and cause cancer the atmosphere also acts as a blanket keeping the earth warm by absorbing heat energy a rise in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased the amount of energy absorbed and this is causing global warming and climate change the radiant energy of light and heat received by the earth from the sun enables life to survive thank you very much and you know one of the uh the big controversies about uh those dangerous anthropogenic emissions and and the causes of climate change is that people in many countries have not historically contributed to those causes but of course those countries are being affected by climate change um profamit and surya can can you tell us a little bit about the situation in india how is india being affected by climate change and can you see a role of bioenergy from mitigation and uh adaptation uh to the effects of climate change yeah john uh now the impact of climate change is terrific in india we are facing often this depression cyclone and the water level is going high and all the uh countries i think facing such kind of problem so in cope 26 summit at glasgow uh the achievable targets for india fixed for 2030 and the targets are india will reach its non-fossil fuel energy capacity to 500 gigawatt by 2030 by 2030 india will meet 50 of the energy requirements from renewable energy india will reduce total projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tons from now till 2030 by 2030 india will reduce cardboard intensity of its economy to less than 45 percent and by 2070 we are expecting the target of net zero to achieve so uh i think uh if we can go through this protocols and target and if we get this target achieved i think we will make a climate suitable for the anthropogenic community of india thank you very much one of the controversies is that india uses quite a lot of coal to generate power do you think that that biomass and bio energy uh is a potential way of substituting the use of coal for energy production in india yeah obvious and as you know the cattle population is the highest in the world in india and we can use this biogas as substitute energy and that is green also for the rural people rural population of india and we are trying for that you know uh in our project and i think the use of biomass we also experimented on that and i will discuss it later but uh i think uh that will be a substantial uh substitute uh for uh fossil fuel and another is that uh our prime minister's vision is to uh one scheme is there uh we we call it gujarat scheme to give the poor people uh lpg commission so uh to reduce the fossil fuel uh wood gardening and other things whole etc so ah that is a massive scheme and india i think we provided almost uh 20 crore households this lpg connections uh by 2020 and so uh i think uh that will a great effort to substitute this fossil fuel energy to a kind of green energy that's great thank you very much um anissa and uh elizabeth perhaps elizabeth you can tell us a little bit about the effect of climate change on indonesia and what indonesia is doing to adapt and mitigate in climate change and if bioenergy can play a role in that uh john so we've seen it uh occurrences of blood hydro meteorological disaster and we see uh cities in coastal are sinking like jakarta and sumarang actually jakarta is the cities that has the highest acceleration of sinking because of the sea level rise so the impact of climate change has been great in indonesia but indonesia itself has been trying to mitigate and um the emission and reduce the emission greenhouse gas emission by starting to you know transition from the coal into the biomass so we are starting to use the dual firing for the coal power plant in indonesia thank you john that's great and uh anissa did you have any points that you'd like to add right or do a little bit yeah thank you uh yeah i think as uh elizabeth mentioned about it was about energy transition mechanism yeah that uh actually in in several years the indonesia will uh use a renewable energy that it will be include bioenergy and yeah uh there is also a new uh scheme which is a carbon pricing in indonesia is nilay economic carbon which already uh published with uh the presidential regulation and it's kind of a polluter pay principle so i think it will also uh uh trigger uh for example companies to use uh bioenergy because uh for example if they can reduce their carbon uh or greenhouse gas emission by using bioenergy for example they can have uh uh something some uh benefit from it from the the valuation of the greenhouse gas emission reduction okay thank you very much and uh mary susan if you can tell us a little bit about uganda mitigation adaptation and bioenergy and then after you finish we'll we'll we'll go to creek in the video and and have a look at your cook stove uh testing uh operation so um over to you mary susan if you could tell us a little bit yeah thank you professor john uh there's definitely uh more realization also by uh the public here on the impact of climate change in the country uh there's a lot of discussion on the changes in the water levels which uh basically affect also our electricity supply and the the departments of our water resource management in the government are always working around that so over the years there's been uh more awareness and more understanding of those impacts and definitely bioenergy has an input renewable energy has an input by looking at how to reduce emissions using more appropriate technologies uh creek as the center is playing a huge role in carrying out tests on you know uh emissions carbon monoxide carbon dioxide uh particulate matter and and and and seeing how to promote uh access to more improved uh technologies uh using different uh biomass resources in the country thank you that's fantastic okay well let's let's have a look at a video from from creek uh where agnes is is going to show us how uh biomass is burnt in in uh improved cook stove so tonic please can you play that um that video please so here we have an example of a traditional stove that's commonly used in uganda a traditional stove that uses charcoal you can see that the combustion chamber is quite big it doesn't even have any ceramic or clay liner so there's a lot of heat loss so you find this one these are stuff that you'll find used but now we've seen a transition there are some improvements you can see in the local market you'll find this this improvement where now people this is i would say this is semi-improved it's a clear line stove smaller combustion chamber using charcoal commonly and then you have a lot of local manufacturer within the region within uganda where you have this is an improved what we are calling a locally manufactured improved uh local stove so it's using charcoal you can see it's lined so it has an element of heat saving insulation and then your the combustion chamber is also quite small and for this stove you can also use what we call carbonized briquettes so this is an example carbonized briquettes that is not charcoal it just uses charcoal dust it can use agro waste so this fuel is also used for for this type of stove or you can't even use it on this stove so there are many of these that are locally made an example you can see there are so many over there this is an improved wood stove now you can see this stove you can see the combustion chamber where you your fuel enters it's quite small you can even use three or four pieces of wood to cook and your food will cook really well it's well designed symmetrically and an advantage about this stuff is it even has that thermal electric generator behind here so you find that it will you find that as it cooks it also generates electricity and that electricity can be used to charge a phone and light a bulb that's great thank you very much uh in indeed donna for playing that uh and to uh creek and agnes for for the video uh describing those different types of cook stoves um uh professional suret it's that video was from uganda i mean in uh india are people using biomass in the same sort of way with with charcoal stoves or or uh do people use biomass in a different way in india yes in india also like uh as due to the government the lpg penetration is there but it has failed to substitute the the biomass in the rural area especially like uh like like in some households they are using both the the clean foil as well as the biomass you know so that's when there are many cases of uh health problems also which has caused especially which has affected especially the women and the children so that we can say in india also these cooks book stores are still prevalent still the women are using in their households and uh like until date night in 2015 one like 24 000 premature deaths had occurred in india due to usage of this kind of traditional coat stores but due to the government intervention there has been a 16 percent rise in the clean flow in penetration in india but yet there are still many gaps and there are still many barriers which india has to overcome in order to achieve a full um like full avoidance of this this kind of cook stops moreover this uh the main carriers and fetching the woods uh from the forest woman and children so investment of time in the household work is also going to be less because of this so that is also one concern ah for us that how to minimize this kind of fetching on investment of time to fear loops collection ah two weeks collection and that is also important uh for the household core okay thank you very much and uh and anissa and uh elizabeth what's the situation in indonesia uh people use in indonesia is it similar to these charcoal a lot well in indonesia uh we already transitioned into kerosene like in the past decade from woods but then after the kerosene we also transition into the clean gas lpg but of course those in remote areas are still using woods dry woods a lot of them and i think the next question for indonesia will be how we transition into more sustainable energy because the gas in indonesia reserve is only for the next 70 years yeah that's anisa do you have anything to add there yeah i think as uh we use as as uh i think as uh elisabeth mentioned that we will have the energy transition mechanism to renewable energy but yes i think the coal problem is is a very big issue but but if the transition occur then uh yeah i think it will be very good and now it's uh the cop the cop 26 i think this this is the great even i mean to collaborate between the national and international stakeholders because it is if indonesia has a plan to do that i think the international community can support also for for example for uh green funding and etc so the collaboration is is occurring at this time so it will uh have a good solution for that yeah there's been some really interesting uh discussions in in cop 26 that uh relate to indonesia about deforestation for example but that's a different slightly different issue from from our discussions here on biomass but very topical um in the background i think poppy is running a poll um asking people about how to use bio energy in their community so if you're watching the the video live stream please can you uh engage with that poll and we'll we'll come back to it uh a a little bit later but first let's have a look at another video from uh creek in uganda where they have the cook stove testing uh facility and one of the concerns about burning uh firewood in in kitchens is what's called the killer in the kitchen the firewood produces smoke and particulates in smoke uh affect people's have a very drastic effect on people's health and it affects women and children most because they tend to be in the kitchen so johnny could you can you show us uh jimmy agab um having a look at the quantity of particulates that come from some of those cook stoves we have the free filter which has not yet been used meaning this one has not gone under any test so it is very clean so we take the mass before carrying out to the test and then afterwards we bring it here for conditioning for more 24 hours before we take the final mass then after operating the stove depending on how on the amount of emissions the particulate matters it has released we always now get the mass after the test and in this case you see that a stove released a lot of particulate matters as it can be evidenced on the filter paper so in this case we always monitor its weight using an electronic sensitive scale which is here which is measured into five decimal places you have to take the measurements uh five times repeatedly to avoid any kind of error so if you see that they are the results which you obtain are deviating from each other by more than 10 uh 10 milligrams then you have to take more extra measurements in order to erase out any kind of doubt within your data while all those residues go into people's lungs no wonder it causes the it's known as the killer in the kitchen mary susan can you tell us a little bit about work the work of the the regional testing center creek and their efforts to design and manufacture fuel-efficient stoves and how to reduce those particulate emissions thank you professor john uh so uh at at creek we have a regional testing and a knowledge center that was set up several years ago in partnership with different organizations are working to see how to reduce the emissions coming out of the conventional stoves that were using in the country because like i said earlier most of the people here over 90 percent are still using biomass for cooking and in the towns for instance with the charcoal very dangerous gas the carbon monoxide uh if the cooking is done in a closed environment which is usually the case and people are ignorant about these emissions uh there have been a lot of health hazards and issues of respiratory problems especially for mothers and children so at the center we have a state-of-the-art equipment to carry out tests on emissions mainly carbon monoxide carbon dioxide are particulate matter which is so uh in the video basically uh particles coming out that are inhaled as the cooking is going on by whoever is in proximity which affects uh the lungs so in uh with the the the testing center the results that we have got over the years we've tested over 400 models of cookstoves not just from uganda but also from countries around and not just in africa also having stoves coming in from asia for testing just to look at how to design better innovations technologies more appropriate technologies that lower down those emissions indoor air pollution in the kitchens we've also used those results of course to recommend alternative fuels that can work or perform well with different technologies the technologies include uh combustion uh micro combustion technologies micro gas fire technologies that rank very highly with low emissions and high efficiency pyrolysis technologies on turret function we've looked at a bioethanol also for cooking uh recommending also biogas for areas that have enough feedstock uh from waste from agro-waste and and different kind of feedstock that we have in the country also west coming from kitchen organic material leftovers and things like this so there's a lot of work uh that we are doing uh also working with the small companies that are trying to do local manufacture of these technologies in the country to lower the cost we are supporting them building their confidence in technology helping them test and improve on the models before they take that out to the markets because of the work we're doing here uh we are part of the uh uganda national uh bureau of standards and advising and contributing to the development of standards uh to carb uh the quality of uh these technologies that go out in the market and we also do uh through this uh regional testing and knowledge center campaigns dissemination of information to the public to know the benefits of the good technologies and the dangers of the bad technologies before we move on to the next topic can you tell us a little bit about those outreach activities the kampala tv drama series and the radio um programs that you've been doing at creek yes that's a really uh exciting project professor john and everybody that is listening uh to be able to uh you know reach out to the people that actually are most critical to get this information on the benefits of the technologies for years we're doing a lot of work and we realize that unless the information is packaged in a way that the normal person in their houses can you know interpret and then be provoked to take the right decisions either just to spend a little to purchase these uh improved technologies and you know have the the health of their children improved uh we we we needed to improve on our approach and dissemination and through that we partnered uh with a company here called atonga media a very very innovative and an intelligent team on dissemination using visual audio products so we have feature films um we have one called beautiful ashes that is uh looking at alternative cooking fuels briquettes but packaged in in in a short film uh that that that is that will be played and and people can watch and there's entertainment there there are stories being told but also the technology is demonstrated within the film we have a tv series going on now called kampala kampala that you know shows uh you know a typical pattern of a life in an urban center but within that episodes that are bringing out you know technologies that can be used to cook in the urban center with which are some of those that we have seen in the videos uh that you've seen before for the regional testing and knowledge center we have a radio drama that we expect to go not just in uganda or in africa but all over the world explaining uh the benefits of good technology for bioenergy and also the dangers of using poor technologies the emissions and the real impact it has on lives within the household and using comic characters to to to make the story interesting but at the same time pass on very critical information that will help their listeners to make decisions on how to stand better on technology thank you i i i thank you i've seen clips from beautiful ashes and and kampala and i can certainly say they're very dramatic way of of bringing renewable energy in the the radio program talks about water hyacinths as well and with the the character there whose father was a fisherman we'll talk about that in in just a moment um but now we're we're going to have a look at uh alternatives a biomass combustion that would produce particulates um and we'll we'll have a look at using um biomass in a biogas digester so johnny can you play the uh the clip from the the biogas digester in indonesia please foreign okay thank you very much and boo elizabeth and uh anisa can you tell us a little bit about biogas in uh indonesia what what are the benefits from what are the problems yeah biogas in indonesia has been widely used for uh treat the manure in a village that because previously they just throw the manure to the river and pollute the river but since the household biogas program it has been becoming energy biogas that they use for cooking well anisa do anything you would like to add there from indonesia's use of biogas yes uh thank you so yes indeed uh i think i have a story that i've been to the village with most of them are has used manual produced by your guests but yeah uh in the beginning it was a really benefit for them because uh they the government has introduced a biogas uh plan the the gas uh machine and yeah and uh i think one also the problem is uh they searched they shared the story from to me that uh once the the the uh machine is broken uh they don't know where to fix the machine so this they told me that they just stopped producing burgers so i think that's uh one of the problem that has to be attention for for us for the government and for the stakeholders around us this village yeah and i i also hear that people don't like to use biogas if it's from animal or human waste is that is that right yes that's true that's true so we conducted a survey in uh urban shopping in indonesia and they dislike the idea of cooking from human manure or yeah from the uh solid waste or something like that so what government do is that uh they try to introduce it into the boarding school mostly the religious boarding school and try to see how the perception would change but then another solution is that to use the biogas for electricity instead of for cooking so that might be the next step that the indonesian government should pursue okay that's very interesting well there are alternatives to using uh livestock in human slurry jono can you show us a picture of this amazing plant the water hyacinth i don't know if anybody out there watching has um uh knows this there's this this plant it's an invasive plant that's been causing all sorts of problems but it also you can turn that on its head and uh it it can offer opportunities so maybe we can go to profamit and surya to tell us a little bit about the use of invasive plants like water hyacinth for biogas over to you profanity yeah john this water hyacinths create a massive problem for rural water bodies in india and uh this creates uh uh hindrance for fishing uh swimming uh taking uh pond water uh for the cooking purpose so but using this kind of water acids for uh biogas generation has a multi-pronged uh effect benefit ah say first one is that you can get clean water by uh this through this water hyacinth uplifting and you are using this in uh in the bio biogas dome ah digester as two is to one proportion two cowden and one ah water assist and that will increase seventy five percent of uh biogas production we have experimented that in our field also and so you are getting a clean energy third one is that you are getting a good fertilizer which is richer in nitrogen than ah plain cow dump and fourth one is you are using these invasive macrophytes which is dangerous for the community also and you can also use their stems we are generally using the leaves of the water hyacinths but you can use the steam i will show you uh this is the dried steam of water hyacinths and you can make this basket with using this swing switching so you can you can create micro enterpreneurship micro enterprise in rural areas with these invasive macrophages that also create some income generation uh for the rural households as well as green energy green gas so biogas has no cost ah if you have uh enough cattle population so you are getting gas free and you you can create micro enterprise by using these stems also ah and you are getting a good fertilizer clean water so this is the unique feature of using invasive macrophytes especially or biomass for energizing bioenergy fantastic it's amazing you know if one stops looking at these things as contrast constraints and starts to look at them as opportunities and uh i remember when i lived in tanzania we used to say to me a bongo you know use use your intelligence to uh try and come up with with with new ideas and and new approaches now we're getting some results in from the uh the poll uh and puppies just sent me a message saying that 51 of the uh the people who are listening say that they use bio energy in their communities which is um you know quite quite a big amount here in the north york malls i i i use bio energy in my stove i have it right next to here because it's quite cold here in the uk uh at the moment um but it's in the uk it's it's not not everybody uses uh bioenergy but of course around the world a huge amount of uh bio energy is is used and of course if you want to learn more about bioenergy then please go to our our course on the uh futurelearn platform and uh you can you can find out uh lots of information about it there right i think we're ready to to to take questions at this point and um poppy's sending me some questions here's one uh from forehan she has a question how massive should the transition and expansion of bioenergy be to fully replace unsustainable energy by the middle of the century um let's take that to the uh indonesia team anissa and elizabeth what do you think about that question can i start it whoever is have it yeah okay that's that was very uh interesting question actually from farhan yeah uh i think it's from indonesia yeah and uh so actually yeah uh it's really uh it's really quite uh difficult to say how massive because yeah i think in in uh in bioenergy also if it's come from waze or from whether he assumed from that in india is uh using i think uh it's it's really great but for instance if it's coming from the food yeah if it's a massive it will be also a problem because we know that there is a controversial about force food versus a fuel so i think uh yeah we also need to think about also the bioenergy diversification so it's not come only from the the the food which can produce oil and then use as a biofuel for instance but yeah we need to uh do diverse different diversification that uh utilize waste uh for example in palm oil there is a palm oil mill effluent which is the the strong uh waste uh liquid waste that can be also used for biogas so yeah i think that's from me yeah so i think please go ahead okay yeah i just want to add uh confirm what anissa had said i think we should focus more on the municipal solid waste because uh bio converted into bioenergy has been proven to be the most impactful way to the environment and the most optimalized polarization and i think we should apply the same way too uh to the agricultural waste and also for the livestock uh ways that from the mirror like we have uh discussed before and by using the bio energy converting uh the ways uh not only that we have a full circular economy but we can also convert all the carbon uh back into the its utilization okay thank you very much elizabeth and if we can move on to the the the next question from uh muhammad is it possible for an administrative area or city that has the potential to boost the utilization of bioenergy so that it develops a centralized pattern maybe we can go to um amit and surrey in india do you think bioenergy is going to be able to provide energy at a at the city level yeah it's very much possible uh first thing is that if we uh collaborate with the uh municipal municipalities in the uh local areas they are the administrative bodies for a city and metropolis also and if they can segregate this waste into green and others so we can use that green resources as biomass for producing bio energy we have experimented with championing that using biomass and the surrounding areas which which are chopped by our the cleaners and we can use that we use that biomass for uh producing bio energy for hostels uh especially gulf systems so uh it is very much possible i i think it's a very good proposal also and but but that depends on the i know that political will of the administered administration who are in the in the leadership and the awareness of the people that two things can speed up this uh very essential part of uh bio energy production thank you very much and and mary susan do you think it's possible to scale up by bio energy up to the the city level and maybe your work there with water hyacinth provides an opportunity for doing that yes uh most definitely the potential of bioenergy to be used you're not just at the city level but at the national level even for the generation of electricity it's very high here we in uganda we have uh sugarcane and the sugarcane factories in an association already have projections we already have a number of megawatts feeding into our grid for electricity potential to have those megawatts increased looking at also when is possible midwest are over 70 percent of the component of the municipal solid waste here is organic which can be uh converted to uh energy uh either as heat or electricity that can also go uh to serve the whole city or uh be fed into the grid so the potential is huge uh with water hyacinth uh the government has approached us to do to give feedback from the researcher doing with perform on how uh uh the water hyacinth and the energy from the biogas can be used even on a bigger scale for electricity generation because the quantity is actually quite uh substantial so this potential is high and uh we are pursuing that there's uh a demand for it the research outpost should be able to answer these questions we have also other projects with the municipal municipalities here uh looking at you know partnering with them uh to provide technology for conversion of the organic part of the municipal solid waste for electricity generation thank you thank you very much mary susan okay we've got another question there from mucia um and poppy if you can put that up onto the screen um they heard that europe uh experienced an energy crisis this winter how can bio energy solve the energy crisis um i'll i'll take that one as i'm the european representative here on the uh on the panel um in the uk germany and also in the netherlands um quite a lot of bioenergy is used for generation and and that's been replacing coal fire uh coal as a fuel in uh power station so for example not too far from where i live here in yorkshire there's a big power station called the drax power station and that's been burning biomass for quite some time and that's because the the coal deposits in the uk are actually running out um and so in order if that power station was going to be fired from coal then it would we we would need to import coal now that creates a sustainability question because the the wood biomass that's been used to fire power the drax power station is coming from the usa so a lot of forests have been cut down there and then converted into pellets and then transform ported over to to fuel the the drax power station so it's a little bit of a conundrum we're getting near the um uh the end of today's uh broadcast so i would like to thank all members of the the the panel amon sure in uh india mary susan in uganda uh anissa and elizabeth in bandung in indonesia it's really fantastic that you've been uh able to uh to join us and we've got a comment there from a participant as well great work done by the the knowledge testing center in uganda and sub-saharan africa which i think is a testament to all the word all the work that's been done by um uh uh mary susan and and her team there in in kampala the recording will be available um after the session if you want to continue discussion in the comments but just to finish off now we're going to play a short video about how to sign up with our bioenergy course on futurelearn so jono over to you and thank you very much to all the panel and everybody participating [Music] you

Channel: University of Leeds

Views: 41,361

Keywords: COP 26, University of Leeds, Leeds University, renewal energy, bioenergy, sustainability, mooc, online courses, FutureLearn, UPI, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation, Visva-Bharati University

Id: KGoIFOtPW_I

Length: 56min 0sec (3360 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021