Pasir Angling

Tuesday morning here in Bandung. I have just finished my breakfast consisting of oatmeal with raisins and raw cane sugar along with some green tea. The sun is shining in through my window. Clouds are covering most of Bandung but the peaks on the crater-rim are still bathed in the morning light. The plan for the day is to go up to Cicalung and figure out a way to measure gas production from Wawa's large scale system. Before that, I am meeting Rima, one of the volunteers at YPBB, who will be helping out to make an Indonesian-English Biogas dictionary and a curriculum for teaching english to the biogas team in Cicalung!

This past weekend, I took part in my first biogas system installation in a village called Pasir Angling. It is much more remote than the other villages in the area and is best reached on foot. A large installation team consisting of Yono, Wawa, Wawas young crew of biogas technicians and myself, set out for Pasir Angling on Saturday morning. We spent three full days installing two new systems in the village. Ususally the installations are quicker and require less people but since the design of both digesters where new (one vertical cylinder and one short and fat horizontal one), there where several technical hurdles that had to be overcome. Heavy afternoon rains also made it more difficult. Working from early morning to way past dark, it was amazing to see the commitment and enthusiasm from the team, that in turn was reflected back by the active and strong participation of the many villagers, who took part in the installation. Many of the them are now interested in building their own systems (hopefully by themselves but with the possibility of support if they need it).

Tomorrow is an exciting day. My very good friend Matt from California and his girlfriend Meghan are arriving in the morning. They have been traveling around South East Asia for the last 6 months and decided to stop by and visit before they make their way back to the states. I am working on a plan to integrate their visit with my tight schedule. I am sure I will be able to put them to work and hopefully add a new dimension to their travels.


The horizontal digester with mixer, aka "The Fat One".

At around 5 m3 volume, this digester will provide biogas for the cooking needs of the family of the RW of Pasir Angling (the local community leader). The biogas will replace fuelwood and fossil fuel based cooking fuels such as kerosene and LPG. In reality however, a hybrid system is often used.

Biogas team in action. Yono and Wawa work together to open the gas valve.

The RW of Pasir Angling during installation.

Awan is heavily supervised while preparing the mixer for the Fat One.


Rain, thunder and lightning, every day, 3 o'clock.

Checking for leaks in the piping system with a newly constructed portable manometer. On the left is a pressure valve and safety valve integrated into the same plastic bottle (Designed by Wawa). The pressure in the digester is regulated by the water level in the bottle and the safety valve makes sure that the pressure never becomes higher than the material strength of the plastic used for the digester.

Mud, rain and late nigths - but the digester is installed!

Hanging out (Nongkrong in Sundanese) in the Warung (café/store) in Cicalung and slightly delaying the departure to Pasir Angling. Here we are chatting about family, directions and noses. They find it strange that I don't have brothers or sisters, wonder how far it is to Sweden and think I have the longest nose you could possibly imagine.