Economic evaluation of biogas as energy and fertilizer in rural northeast Thailand

Thesis/Dissertation · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:5909439

Sombuntham, S

In the aftermath of the 1974 oil crisis, Thailand faces a complex problem: agriculture is characterized by low productivity, and an increasing burden is now being placed on national forest reserves as the primary source of fuel. The nation is forced to choose: land for forests and fuel, or land for agriculture and food. In either case, current levels of land use are having serious environmental consequences. Biogas has been proposed as a possible remedy to alleviate these problems. In this study, three sizes of biogas plants are studied to facilitate cost estimates, and two Thai villages provide case studies of actual applications. Then a stratified random sample of 60 households is selected from the two villages, based on economic class groupings. The central question is to inquire whether biogas is feasible and profitable for villages with differing characteristics, for different income groups within those villages, and whether technological viability is affected by plant size. The results show that there are increasing returns to scale for larger biogas plants; that the poorer village obtains more benefits per unit of output than the more modernized village; that the poorest households within each village have the highest potential gains from biogas. It is recommended that Thailand implement biogas technology in those regions and for those villages where benefit-cost analysis demonstrates its economic feasibility.

• OSTI ID: 5909439
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
090122 -- Hydrocarbon Fuels-- Preparation from Wastes or Biomass-- (1976-1989)
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
299003* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Unconventional Sources & Power Generation-- Other-- (-1989)
AGRICULTURE
ALKANES
ASIA
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
FERTILIZERS
FORESTS
FUELS
HYDROCARBONS
INDUSTRY
METHANE
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PRODUCTION
RURAL AREAS
SYNTHETIC FUELS
THAILAND