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Rwanda harnesses volcanic gases from depths of Lake Kivu http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1282352932
In a world first, the barge is extracting gases that are trapped deep in Lake Kivu's waters like the fizz in a champagne bottle. Methane, the main constituent of natural gas used for household cooking and heating, is then separated out and piped back to the rugged shore where it fires three large generators.
The state-owned Kibuye Power plant is already producing 3.6MW of electricity, more than 4 percent of the country's entire supply. But the success of the pilot project, and the huge unmet demand for power in Rwanda -- only one in 14 homes have access to electricity -- has encouraged local and foreign investors to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to new methane plants along the lakeshore. Within two years, the government hopes to be getting a third of its power from Lake Kivu, and eventually aims to produce so much energy from methane to be able to export it to neighbouring countries.
"Our grandfathers knew there was gas in this lake but now have we proved that it can be exploited," said Alexis Kabuto, the Rwandan engineer who runs the $20m Kibuye project. "It's a cheap, clean resource that could last us 100 years."
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[Read more stories about:
alternative energy, methane release]
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'Doc Jim says:
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Isn't that methane supposed to be used to warm the planet?
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