To local people, rice husk is not waste. Instead, it is used to fuel kilns producing bricks and pottery. This traditional craft creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Mekong Delta. However, traditional rice husk-fueled kilns have low energy efficiency and seriously pollute the environment with their smoke emission.

In response to local complaints of pollution and the call for minimizing the global warming effect, the Government of Vietnam has imposed a ban on traditional brick kilns as of 2010. Existing kiln owners has only two choices: either closing their business, which will result in massive unemployment, or switching to kilns using fossil fuel, which will require enormous initial investment.

Le Hoang Viet doesn't think so. Director of ENERTEAM, an independent organization in the fields of energy and resources management in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet has come up with an integrated solution of using rice husk gasification to address both the global emission issue and the local business issue.

Viet's project implements rice husk gasification together with a type of kilns called "continuous four-compartment kiln." Integrated together, the technology allows for controlled removal of exhaust byproduct while obtaining the government's mandate. Furthermore, it facilitates the continued use of rice husk, or biomass, as fuel, instead of switching to fossil energy. The project also introduces the business model of energy service in order to facilitate the adoption of new technology.

The global objective of the project is to reduce Green House Gas emission by deploying a biomass technology to replace fossil fuel technology in the argil burning business.

Gasification is not a new technology on its own. However, Viet's project is the first to implement rice husk gasification integrated with argil burning kiln in Indochina. In a sense, this project is somewhat like the Egg of Columbus. A brilliant idea that seems simple after it's explained.

Viet has not discovered anything of the scale of the Americas but his project may help many people in the Mekong Delta retain their hopes for life in a less polluted environment.

Text by Son Tung

Video & Voice by D J Clark

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About D J Clark

D J Clark has worked worldwide as a photojournalist for more than 20 years.

He specialises in working with international development NGOs to highlight social, political and environmental issues through long term photography projects.

D J Clark researches and writes about photography as a vehicle for social change, the subject that drives both his photographic and academic work. More recently his work has concentrated on Multi Media news production.