WB helps Hebei to increase access to biogas in rural areas

About 96,100 rural households in China’s Hebei Province will gain access to clean, easy-to-use biogasfor cooking, with help from a $71.5 million loan approved by the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors.

The Hebei Rural Renewable Energy Development Project, to be implemented from 2015 to 2020,willinvest in the installation and operation of six biogas facilities, which will convert crop residues and livestock manure to biogas and provide stable, clean energy tolocal rural residents.

The project is important, because rapid agricultural development in China, while helping boost rural incomes and improve thenation’s food supply, also poses a threat to the environment and public health. Various activities, such as the production of crop residues and livestockmanure, as well as the use of coal for cooking and heating by rural residents, have worsened air and water pollution.

Asone of China’s leading agricultural producers, Hebei also has theworst air quality of all China’s provinces, with the heaviest and the longest duration ofhaze partly due to intensive farming and concentrated livestockproduction. Wheat, corn and cotton production alone generatesabout61.8 million tons of crop residues every year. Around two-thirds of crop waste is used as fertilizer or animal feed, and the rest is mainlyburned in open fields or used as fuel for household cooking and heating, causing indoor andoutdoor air pollution. In addition, livestock farms generate about 30.7 million tons of livestock manure, which, without proper treatment, can pollute the water and spread diseases.

“The new project will demonstrate how the production and use of biogas can reduce environmental pollution and supply clean energy. The experience gained from the pilot can be used for promoting effective and sustainable use of the large amounts of agricultural wastes in Hebei Province and surrounding areas, and contribute to the efforts to improve air quality in the Jing-Jin-Ji region,” saidJin Liu, World Bank’sSenior Agriculture Specialistand task team leaderfor this project.

The project is expected to produce around 42 million cubic metersof biogas, which will be provided to about96,100 ruralhouseholds to cook with. By replacing coal, it is estimated to reduce around 58,780 tons of CO2 emissionsevery year. The remaining biogaswill be upgraded and used as fuel forpublic transport in the project counties.