Patna, (Bihar Times): Manoj Sinha and Charles Ransler, two students of Virginia University’s Darden School of Business, with their partner Gyanesh Pandey, have conceived another non-conventional source of energy, that is, by burning rice husks. In this regard they have started a project with an India-based partner to supply electricity to villages in Bihar. Reports emanating from Washington say that producing electricity in this way may also help reduce carbon emissions.

Reports say that so far two pilot rice husk generators are providing power to about 10,000 rural Indians, which will save 200 tonnes of emissions annually for each village if compared to generation of power from diesel or coal.

Apart from electricity, ash of the burnt husks can be sold as an ingredient for cement.

The business plan of Husk Power Systems calls for a rapid expansion that will put the miniature power plants in hundreds more villages within a few years. The report also said that the plan recently received several votes of confidence as college business plan competitions have awarded it almost $ 100,000 in prize money, including $ 50,000 for winning the Social Innovation Competition at the University of Texas on May 2, $ 35,000 for second place at MIT’s Ignite Clean Energy competition on May 12 and a $ 10,000 top prize from the University of Virginia on April 7.

The idea for the rice husk generators was originally conceived by Sinha, who earned his engineering degree from the University of Massachusetts and holds 10 patents for work done at Intel, and Gyanesh Pandey, who left an engineering career in Los Angeles to return to India. Sinha and Pandey went to college together in India and both hail from rural areas that struggle with a lack of electricity.

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