While 400 new factories are crying for gas, as reported in the FE (February 4), it is sad that the easy process of generating methane from human solid waste remains unexplored. The urban areas of Bangladesh now spend precious funds on its disposal. It is indeed an irony that we allow this potential raw material for natural gas to simply go waste. It is even being allowed to pollute our water bodies in many areas.
Our topmost priority must go for exploiting this free raw material for processing it into valuable methane gas. Today only a few NGOs are using this in the rural areas and in some large poultry farms where chicken stool is converted to methane. However, we have not explored this avenue seriously. There is a tremendous prospect for generating methane as gas that can be the fuel for power generation. For this, we only need 'solid human waste' which, in almost all urban areas, is collected only to be dumped. We can avoid utilising the solid waste from cattle, as it is popularly used as fertiliser and in some cases, is dried on sticks and used as cooking fuel in rural areas and urban slums.
In Thailand, this free raw material is transferred to digesters to produce methane gas for power generation in almost all its urban areas. This does not need any complicated equipment. All we need are steel tanks, pipelines, pumps and compressors for a supply network of methane gas. This has to be our top national priority. We can develop it locally and practically no foreign exchange investment is needed. The raw material is free and as more people migrate to our urban areas, methane gas availability will also increase. It is indeed very sad that we have taken no step in harnessing this potentially and eternally available free source of valuable fuel for gas. Will the concerned authorities in the energy sector wake up and go for exploiting this huge quantity of solid human waste? Solid human waste is a never-ending free raw material to produce much-needed methane fuel gas for power generation.
The writer is an engineer with over 50 years of hands-on experience in power generation, industrial equipment installation and commissioning sam@dhakacom.com
Use of human waste for producing methane gas
S.A.Mansoor | Published: February 08, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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