Foundation stone laid for pilot sisal biogas power plant
DAR ES SALAAM, Nov 16, 2004 (Xinhua via COMTEX)
The foundation stone of a pilot power plant using sisal biogas was laid on Tuesday in Tanga in northeastern Tanzania in the presence of sisal experts from more than a dozen countries.
The 5.3 million-US-dollar waste transformation plant is co- financed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Common Fund for Commodities, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Belgium, Kenya and Tanzania, according to Hao Jianguo, a Chinese sisal expert.
In the production of sisal twines, only 2 percent of the sisal plant is combed out to be the long fiber while the remaining 98 percent is cast as waste known as biomass. Engineers have been considering transforming sisal waste to electricity through a gasification process.
The biogas production in turn produces environmentally-friendly liquid and solid fertilizers which can be used to increase soil moisture retention, to prevent run-off and to bind heavy metals that lead to toxicity in the soil.
A plant of sisal gasification using the sisal biomass is expected to produce each day 350 cubic meters of liquid fertilizer and 40 tons of solid fertilizer.
Tanga is a major sisal-growing area in Tanzania. Each fully- developed sisal farm can produce one megawatt of electricity from 4,500 hectares of sisal plants. Seventy-five percent of the electricity thus generated can add to the national power grid.
Tanzania is one of the world's major sisal growing countries along with Mexico, Brazil, Kenya and Haiti.
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