LEARN3 Zero waste agriculture

A farmer typically produces multiple crops to sell, and yet only 25-40% of his crop (grain, fruits etc.) are marketed, leaving the rest (agricultural waste) to burn in the fields. Any farm in the world produces agricultural waste even if the main food crop fails. The potential for farmers to benefit by selling crop waste (biomass) for energy is staggering.

Biomass is a viable and sustainable energy source for a number of reasons. Biomass is also more evenly distributed over the earth's surface than finite energy sources, and may be exploited using less capital-intensive technologies. It provides the opportunity for local and regional energy self-sufficiency and energy derived from biomass does not have the negative impact on the environment that other non-renewable energy sources has.

For instance, India produces 600 million tons of agriculture waste every year

and 80,000 of the country's half a million villages lack electricity. Two students, Charles Ransler and Manoj Sinha, have started a business providing electricity to some of these villages by turning rice husks - a by-product of rice milling - into gas that then powers an electricity generator.

Already, two of their rice-burning generators are providing electricity to 10,000 rural Indians. The hope is to rapidly expand the business to hundreds of small village power plants.

The business, Husk Power Systems, was started while the two were at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

I am wondering if biofuel could be used to power a gravity wheel. . . . hmmmm