Her stove was connected to a pipe that ran across her lush yard and connected to a biogas generator fueled by coffee byproducts that used to pollute local rivers. “Look how high that flame is,” said Sarahi Pastran as she cooked bananas in her kitchen at the La Hermandad coffee cooperative in San Ramon de Matagalpa in Nicaragua. Now a pilot project at 19 farms in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras is treating that water, separating out the methane and using it to fuel electric generators. In Central America, locals call it “honey water” because of its sweet taste and yellowish color.Įxtremely polluting, it is high in methane gas - a leading contributor to global warming produced, in this case, by the fermentation of the coffee tree’s berries.Īcross Nicaragua, the 1.3 million sacks of coffee produced annually generate pollution equivalent to about 20,000 cars. MATAGALPA (NICARAGUA): That morning cup of coffee gives many of us a needed boost, but Central American coffee farmers have found a new source of energy in their beans: turning agricultural wastewater into biogas.Īn often-overlooked byproduct of the world’s favorite stimulant, the water used to process raw coffee beans is usually dumped back into the environment untreated. A man collects coffee beans at El Puma farm, some 30km from Jinotega, Nicaragua, on Novem-© AFP/File / by Katell Abiven