EVALUATION OF A BATCH SYSTEM, SMALL-SCALE BIO DIGESTER AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR FUEL WOOD IN ADDRESSING DEFORESTATION IN THE RURAL NIGERIA

Fuel wood cutting, collection and distribution in recent years have been one of the booming industries in Nigeria. Plagued with the problem of energy for domestic use, more than two third of Nigerians residing in the rural areas wholly depend on fuel wood energy for their household activities; cooking, heating and generation of warmth. A consumption put at 43 million metric tons, (43 x 109 kg) per annum giving a per capita consumption of about 511.2 kg / person per anum for rural dwellers and 360 kg / person for urban settlers. An enormous use of fuel wood at this large scale poses a grave and devastating environmental side effect, notably being deforestation and desertification now eating deep into the heart of Nigerian Forest cover at a very alarming rate. (Bugaje 2004). Akinbami et al 2001’s assessment has identified feed stock substitute for an economically feasible biogas programme, a substitute for wood fuel, and Nigeria produces 227,500 tons (2.275 x 108 kg ) of fresh animal wastes daily. According to the study, 1 kilogram (kg) of fresh animal waste produces about 0.03 m3 gas, hence, Nigeria can produce about 6.8 million m3 of biogas everyday, enough to meet the cooking need of an average family size, an annual equivalent put at 4.81 million barrels crude oil, or 6.9 x 106 tons of fuel wood (Adeoti et al, 2001). This work is aimed at Evaluating Using Quantitative and Comparative Data analysis, a Batch System, Small Scale family size bio digester; The possible volume of gas that could be produced as against the same quantity of wood consumed, the estimated amount of fuel wood in kg that could be avoided, and the forested land that could be conserved by the substitution. From the result obtained, the conservable fuel wood for a family size of say 7 could range from 11.524 kg/day when substituted with the equivalent quantity of gas (2.3048 m3), while CO2 avoidable from tree felling in the chosen region could range close to 1,540,000kg (1,540 metric tons per annum).2008-10-09