CHINA / METHANE GAS

For years, China-the world's largest producer of methane--has been capturing gas from household and farm waste to use as fuel. With help from the World Bank, it is refining and expanding its energy revolution. WORLD BANK

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:03:18
• Production Date: 6 November 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD BANK
• Subject Topical: NATURAL RESOURCES; ENVIRONMENT; ENVIRONMENT; POLLUTION
• Geographic Subject: CHINA
• MAMS Id: U091106e

Description

STORY: CHINA / METHANE GAS
TRT: 3.18
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: MANDARIN / NATS

DATELINE: GUANGXI, CHINA, JUNE 2009

Shotlist

GUANGXI, CHINA, JUNE 2009

1. Various shots, woman feeding pigs
3. Woman cooking breakfast wide and tight
4. Various shots, woman cooking rice in firewood stove
5. Pan right, from hay to stove
5. Wide shot, woman turns off methane to stove
6. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Jia You Huang, Farmer:
“In the past, before biogas, two of us went into the mountains to collect firewood. It took half a day each time and we went two or three times a month.”
7. Wide shot, Spraying pig shed
8. Wide shot, toilet
9. Med shot, pulling back cover biogas tank
10. Close up, methane pipes and pressure gauge
11. Med shot, Kitchen seen from outside
12. Various shots, removing slurry from biogas digester and spreading on fields
13. Tracking shot, man puts cooking pot on methane stove
14. Various shots, pigs for methane production
15. Various shots, fruit tree farmer chopping wood
16. Various shots, building a digester
17. Tracking shot, woman showing methane stove and light
18. Close up, building digester
19. Close up, turning stove on
20. Close up, turning on light
21. Med shot, pigs
22. Various shots, training session
23. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Chen Weichao, Deputy Director, Program Management Center of Guangxi Foreign Fund Agriculture Projects:
“China has a long history of utilizing biogas and China has accumulated lots of experience as well. Still we like to work with the World Bank, we like to benefit in two areas. First is in knowledge management, we like to get more knowledge and expertise. Second is fund utilization, so we like to use WB funds to speed up development.”
20. Various shots, butcher cutting meat
21. Zoom in, pigs in pig shed
22. Med shot, man at exterior of pig shed
23. Med shot, woman in kitchen
24. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Qiong Huang:
“I’m also healthier since I started cooking with methane. I don’t have to stand over the heat and inhale the smoke anymore and I have more time for my granddaughter.”
25. Various shots, Qiong Huang with family working in farm

Storyline

Jia You Huang’s sixteen hour work day starts with a hot breakfast for her pigs.

Not long ago, the 32 year old rice farmer cooked their gruel over a smoky fire in a sooty kitchen, with wood she had spent hours gathering in the countryside outside her village of Wenguan, in Guangxi. Methane now powers her new stove instantly and cleanly.

SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Jia You Huang, Farmer:
“In the past, before biogas, two of us went into the mountains to collect firewood. It took half a day each time and we went two or three times a month.”

Waste from Huang’s pig shed and family toilet runs underground to an enclosed tank, where methane builds up and flows in a plastic pipe to the kitchen stove and light. It provides enough fuel to cook three meals a day for her family of six for free.
It also provides slurry free natural fertilizer. Huang applies it to her vegetables and rice paddies.
Millions of rural Chinese now use methane for fuel, and the government is encouraging its spread. Keeping pigs or other animals is the easiest way to produce methane, but not the only one. Fruit tree farmers can buy one load of manure a year from a cow or pig farm to start their digester and add wood pruned from fruit trees.

Building a digester, as the tank called, is hard work. The government gives farmers help and advice to build the tank, and to install the stove and light.
It also gives subsidies to buy the setup. And the World Bank is helping five provincial governments subsidize digesters, stoves and improved kitchen lights as well as pig sheds. They are also subsidizing relevant training for over half a million households.

SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Chen Weichao, Deputy Director, Program Management Center of Guangxi Foreign Fund Agriculture Projects:
“China has a long history of utilizing biogas and China has accumulated lots of experience as well. Still we like to work with the World Bank, we like to benefit in two areas. First is in knowledge management, we like to get more knowledge and expertise. Second is fund utilization, so we like to use WB funds to speed up development.”

As China prospers, demand for meat grows. Animal waste is a big producer of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. It is more harmful than carbon dioxide when released. But when captured, it burns cleanly. Qiong Huang had headaches and coughed when she cooked with wood. They have disappeared.

SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Qiong Huang:
“I’m also healthier since I started cooking with methane. I don’t have to stand over the heat and inhale the smoke anymore and I have more time for my granddaughter.”

Huang was one of the first in her village to adopt methane. She tries to persuade friends and family to invest in a digester so they, too, can live a healthier life in a cleaner environment.