On March 16, Project Gaia won the 2010 Sustainable Biofuels Award for Adoption at the World Biofuels Markets Conference in Amsterdam. In the past, this award has been given to government, a municipal vehicle fleet or a new user who has made the switch to biofuels. Project Gaia was given the award in recognition of the significant new market that cooking fuel represents for bioethanol.
Over 3 billion people around the world are dependent on solid fuels, which produce smoke and toxic gases when they burn and contribute to 2 million deaths a year and high rates of respiratory disease, especially among women and children. Over and over again, it has been shown that even the poorest consumers desire to switch to cleaner and more convenient fuel. As a result, cooking represents a major new market for biofuels and one that could potentially dwarf the vehicle fuel market.
The Sustainable Biofuels Awards are sponsored each year by Green Power Conferences (Green Thinking Ltd.). Established in 2003, Green Power was the first to organize events for the biofuels and sustainability industry. It is the leading convener of such events.
The Sustainable Biofuels Awards recognize the ingenuity and innovation of organizations that use biofuels to promote sustainability. Project Gaia Inc. is pioneering an efficient, powerful and safe ethanol stove made by Dometic AB to replace the use of fuelwood, charcoal, dung, and expensive, usually imported petroleum fuels. The judging panel for the awards was comprised of ten judges: Raffaello Garofalo, Secretary General of EBB; Rob Vierhout, Secretary General of Ebio, Ausilio Bauen, Director of E4 Tech, Jonathan Kingsman, CEO of Kingsman, Kevin McGeeney, CEO of Starsupply Renewables, Marcos Sawaya Jank, CEO of UNICA, Graeme Wallace, Director General of EFOA, Jim Lane, Editor of Biofuels Digest, Suzanne Hunt, Principal of Hunt Green LLC, and Prof. Dr. Andre P.C. Faaij of the Copernicus Institute.
Mr. Boma Anga of Cassava Agro Industries, Nigeria, and Meghan Sapp of PANGEA accepted the award on Project Gaia’s behalf. Boma Anga leads the National “Bio-Kero” Project, which matches micro distilleries with CleanCook stoves and other appliances to enable SMEs to produce ethanol for sale directly to a market created by placing ethanol-powered appliances in the community around the distillery. This provides a distributed energy system where clean, liquid biofuels are produced and consumed in the community. The project’s ultimate goal is to make household energy affordable, available, and accessible for all Nigerians.
Meghan Sapp is Secretary General of PANGEA (Partners for Euro-African Green Energy), a nonprofit membership organization based in Brussels, Belgium, which promotes sustainable African bioenergy production, investment, and policy development. Project Gaia is a member of PANGEA.
For more information, visit worldbiofuelsmarkets.com.