Dear Mr Neale, I see two critical non-negotiables in your hypothesis a.converting and containing human wastes under emergency situations and b. secondly examining if biogas could be an option
The answer is quite a Yes with some constraints /or boundary conditions 1. Under non-flooded conditions, digging a pit and adopting a dry /semi dry latrine would be the simplest and easiest. Under flooded /high water table conditions anaerobic digestion and biogas would be a good option. This will contain human wastes and meet your primary objective without other short /long range issues 2. Under flooded conditions it would be wise to build the toilets (or makeshift ones) on stilts or somewhat higher ground and run down the human wastes with steep slope drainage piping into polythene /neoprene (or similar material) balloon type biogas plants with 50+ days of HRT. Usually by then the emergency situations are overcome and other long range alternatives begin to make sense. Nevertheless, you would get biogas and simultaneous treatment of wastes. Biogas produced could be used for lighting the toilet area with mantle lamps for a finite period during the early night and early morning. This would be a good case and also can be converted into a kit that can be shipped to areas of emergencies quickly. Best wishes Chanakya -- Dr. Hoysall Chanakya Centre for Sustainable Technologies (Assoc. Faculty at Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP) and Centre for Contemporary Studies) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012 ph 91-80-2293 3046; fax-91 80 2360 0683 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ Digestion mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org for more information about digestion, see Beginner's Guide to Biogas http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/ and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
