From bamboo to electricity

A bamboo-fuelled eco-friendly power station is to come up in Mizoram to help meet the energy needs of India's northeast. Mizoram produces annually 3.2 million tonnes of bamboo, which has never been tapped to generate electricity.

The power station will be set up in Sairang village at an estimated cost of Rs.28.50 million.

"This cost-effective project has been conceived by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, along with the Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies, a private enterprise," said Benjamin L. Tlumtea, project coordinator of Zoram Energy Development Agency (ZEDA).

"Raw material for the power project is easily available. Once the plan gets going we have plans to use the energy in some industrial units," Tlumtea told IANS.

Bamboo would be first harvested and then dried before it is processed for feedstock to produce gas, which would finally get converted to electricity.

"With the help of such bamboo power projects and power generation through other non-conventional schemes, the state will surely solve its energy crisis," the official said.

An estimated 9,000 sq km area is under bamboo cultivation in Mizoram.

India, the world's largest producer of bamboo after China, grows about 80 million tonnes each year, more than half of it in the northeast.

source