We went to the Natural Resources College in Lilongwe to meet the Principal. This seemed like a good opportunity to meet the head of the College and , hopefully, we would learn about research that is being done in the bio digestion and biogas fields in Malawi. When we arrived, we were surprised that the Principal was quite young and had a somewhat humble office. It took a few minutes to work out that the gentleman we were meeting had the first name “Principal”, rather than being the Principal!
It didn’t take long for us to establish that we were in fact speaking with the right man. Principal has a doctorate in bio-digestion and Dimitri was delighted that he wasn’t the only chemical engineer in the room. I followed most of the discussion, but it got very technical at times. It’s great that we have the scientists to do the hard work in the labs, but this was a reminder that we need to find ways to translate this to messages that can be understood in the village. There, people need to be safe and benefit from biogas; they need to know what to put in the digester; they don’t really need to know about the undesirability of sulphur and ammonia.
Principal installed the digesters as a practical teaching aid and the plan was to generate biogas from food waste from the college kitchen and cafeteria, mixed with some cow dung. The digester works well and there is plenty of gas, however the cooks won’t use it because of a fear of gas on two levels: fear of explosion and fear of food contamination because it is made from cow dung.
The whole visit was a reminder of the need to translate what you are doing for the rural, off grid, settings where we think the turbine generator will be of most use. Without careful sensitisation, there is a risk that you install something that won’t be used because of these phobias.
Malawi Fruits 