July 19, 2011
Here I am inside a model biodigester at the National Biodigester Programme, hosted at the Department of Animal Production and Health. Next to avian flu, the biodigesters are the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ top priority. You can see how high a housheold level biodigester goes, there’s enough gas in there to take care of a multi-household’s electricity and cooking needs. Clean, reliable energy! I really want to get chickens or small livestock in NYC so F and I can generate our own electricity and use the processed slurry in a garden. I don’t know if that’s legal in Brooklyn but it should be. Too tired to say much more about this except that it was an amazing day — morning interviews and lunch at the market (where I observed lots of different fuel types being used), a tuk tuk drive out to the biodigester site on the outskirts of town. In fact, the biodigester officer is very near the Killing Fields. I can’t decide if I should go or not. I’m curious, but I hear it’s a tacky amusement park so maybe the principled thing is to boycott. The Cambodians never mention the Khmer Rouge, and if you ask they say, “very long ago.” But the tourists are crazy with keeping the horror show alive. Anyway, finally wrote out my methodology and the good news is that my former research partner and good friend William will duplicate my research with Nexus in Mali. So the project scope will double and I’ll have an excuse to chat with William once a week. Had a long dinner with Marion at a small French restaurant in an alleyway off the river, drank pastis. Took a night swim, typed up notes, climbed under my net and am so sleepy. Tomorrow will go back to the cookstove production sites in Kampong Chenang to see how the local production happens. A day in the countryside.

Here I am inside a model biodigester at the National Biodigester Programme, hosted at the Department of Animal Production and Health. Next to avian flu, the biodigesters are the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ top priority.

You can see how high a housheold level biodigester goes, there’s enough gas in there to take care of a multi-household’s electricity and cooking needs. Clean, reliable energy! I really want to get chickens or small livestock in NYC so F and I can generate our own electricity and use the processed slurry in a garden. I don’t know if that’s legal in Brooklyn but it should be.

Too tired to say much more about this except that it was an amazing day — morning interviews and lunch at the market (where I observed lots of different fuel types being used), a tuk tuk drive out to the biodigester site on the outskirts of town. In fact, the biodigester officer is very near the Killing Fields. I can’t decide if I should go or not. I’m curious, but I hear it’s a tacky amusement park so maybe the principled thing is to boycott. The Cambodians never mention the Khmer Rouge, and if you ask they say, “very long ago.” But the tourists are crazy with keeping the horror show alive.

Anyway, finally wrote out my methodology and the good news is that my former research partner and good friend William will duplicate my research with Nexus in Mali. So the project scope will double and I’ll have an excuse to chat with William once a week.

Had a long dinner with Marion at a small French restaurant in an alleyway off the river, drank pastis. Took a night swim, typed up notes, climbed under my net and am so sleepy.

Tomorrow will go back to the cookstove production sites in Kampong Chenang to see how the local production happens. A day in the countryside.

12:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMQcUy7HGrp5