Small is still possible

Before much of the world realised the impact and severity of the climate crisis, Nepal was already moving towards clean energy through ‘small is beautiful’ technology that improved on traditional tools and methods. 

Today, Nepal is building multi-billion dollar hydropower projects and importing fancy electrical appliances. But few know that both the government and the country’s development partners were actively promoting small, renewable, and green energy sources before climate change became the buzzword.

The drivers behind this movement beginning in the late 1970s, included the widespread belief that Nepal was losing its forests at an alarming rate resulting in soil erosion. Called the ‘Himalayan Degradation Theory’, it was later debunked, but not before international conferences and workshops on appropriate technology were held to address the threat of denuded mountains.  

In 1978, Nepal-based Belgian Jesuit Bertrand Saubolle and Swiss engineer Andreas Bachmann authored the popular book, Mini Technology. They wrote about how to cool a house without air-conditioning, how to chill beer without a refrigerator, how to produce gas for cooking and lighting, and how to make crows trap themselves. 

Although afforestation and agricultural programs in Nepal 45 years ago received the bulk of foreign and domestic assistance, a small but important portion was devoted to the development of alternative sources of energy for cooking, lighting, and work.

Even back then, Dipak Gyawali, Krishna Murari Gautam and Kunda Dixit were already publishing the Biogas Newsletter and the Nepali language alternative energy journal Shakti to highlight small-scale sustainable solutions to the energy, food and water needs of Nepalis.

Some of the technologies developed and tested in Nepal are shown below. Some are from 50 years ago. 

Technicians and tinkerers drove the development of these alternative tools. Some, like Andreas Bachman and Akkal Man Nakarmi, were certified engineers. Many were mechanically-inclined amateurs with a mission, some would say passion, for developing and disseminating simple technologies that could make life better and easier for the average Nepali farmer.

All were convinced that their work would one day in one way or another lead to poverty alleviation, better natural resource management, and improved livelihoods. Today, it is important to ask: did the decades of appropriate technology research, development, and dissemination have an impact? 

Biogas is one of the success stories of Nepal with over 400,000 household biogas plants installed, while large-scale industrial plants are in various stages of operation today. The spread has now slowed because of outmigration and the entry of cheap LPG.

Hundreds of improved ghatta are still in use. Scores of micro-and mini-hydropower plants continue to provide power for hundreds of Nepal’s isolated mountain villages.

Solar lighting is common in thousands of trekker’s lodges throughout Nepal, as are solar battery chargers for the now-ubiquitous cell phones and laptops. Solar water boilers for kitchen use, and solar driers for fruit preservation, are in use in Nepal’s more arid and sunnier locations, such as Khumbu and Mustang. Solar pumps irrigate fields in difficult terrain.

Unfortunately, the Arusha windmill never left Kathmandu Valley, and the legendary winds of the Kali Gandaki proved to be too much for what proved to be a poorly anchored Savonius windmill. 

Likewise, solar reflectors and insulated cookers never really caught on, most likely because they were too cumbersome or inconvenient to use regularly.

And whatever happened to the predictions of catastrophic loss of forest cover on the mountains, one might wonder. 

Unexpectedly, the  ‘deforestation’ pressures of the 1970s were largely reduced by outmigration, abandoned farmland, LPG cylinders and second-growth forests. Nepal's successful community-based forestry initiatives of the 1980s also deserve credit, and has nearly doubled its forest cover in the past 25 years. 

Reduction in fuelwood use brought about by improved chulo, solar water heaters, backburner water heaters, and locally sourced electricity assuredly played important roles as well.

Nepal is the pioneer of appropriate technologies in South Asia. But how do all of the empirical successes, and some failures, stack up against the gigawatts of energy being produced by massive new hydroelectric stations that is making possible the current switch to electric vehicles? 

In terms of total energy output, appropriate technology’s current contribution is miniscule. But the spirit of innovation and the need for locally-appropriate solutions in rural areas will continue to have relevance to many. Simple, cost-effective solutions may just be what Nepal, and the world, need most in the long run. 

This is especially true because expensive hydro infrastructure and dams are at a higher risk of climate disasters as seen in Melamchi and Sikkim, and Tama Kosi recently.  

 IMPROVED CHULO

Chulo stoves were tested at the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (now NAST) to be disseminated across rural Nepal. Form-fitting holes for pots, fire breaks to direct the flames more directly to the bottom of the pots, and chimneys to remove smoke increased the efficiency of traditional firewood stoves, and improved health.

HONEY BEES

Jesuit priest Bertrand Saubolle was a tireless promoter of 'small is beautiful' technology like biogas, solar driers and small hydropower.

BIOGAS 

In the mid-1970s, the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) introduced the first village biogas plants based on successful models from India. Each unit produced clean methane gas for cooking and lighting, as well as a nutrient-rich slurry that made an excellent pathogen-free fertiliser. The innovative underground dome Nepali design was maintenance free, and cheaper and spread rapidly with subsidised loans from the government.

SOLAR PLANTS

Despite the dismal state of investment and research into solar plants in Nepal today leading to a chronic lack of diversification in the energy sector, the opposite was true in the 1980s. Engineers at Balaju Yantra Shala were testing and marketing the first generation of solar water heaters for domestic home use.

Other solar technologies included solar dryers for drying apples in Marpha, reflective and hotbox cookers that reduced fuelwood use by placing a boiling pot of rice into an insulated box, and solar water boilers that quickly produced hot water for kitchen use.

 WINDMILLS

Windmill technology was also being introduced and tested, and included an Arusha-style windmill constructed by Peace Corps Volunteer Jack Martin and RONAST in 1980, and a Savonius-style vertical axis windmill built by Swiss and Nepali engineers at Balaju Yantra Shala in 1980. 

The latter was eventually installed and tested in Jomsom by USAID’s Resource Conservation and Utilisation Project (RCUP) in 1981, but came to grief due to high winds.

MICROHYDRO

Micro- and mini-hydropower technologies, although common to Nepal’s urban regions for nearly 70 years, were being disseminated to more rural locations by the 1980s as well.

In 1985, former Peace Corps volunteer Brot Coburn and UNESCO designed and installed the first micro-hydroelectric system in Namche Bazar. It was later washed away by the Dig Tso glacial lake outburst in 1985. 

IMPROVED GHATTA

Engineers like Akkal Man Nakrami and Andreas Bachmann  developed improved ghatta, or Multi-Purpose Power Units (MPPU), that not only improved traditional grain grinding efficiency, but also produced electricity. For the first time hundreds of villages across the country had access to electricity at night.

The more efficient water mills used better designed paddles on ball bearings that could be connected to a dynamo to generate enough power for domestic lighting in remote areas. 

Alton C Byers, PhD, is the Faculty Research Scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.