Father Bertrand Saubolle, who was for many years a teacher at St Xavier’s School at Godavari in Lalitpur until he passed away in 1982, constructed Nepal’s first biogas plant in 1955. It was made out of two 200-litre metal oil drums, one used as the digester, the other as the gasholder. His research, however, started at a more micro-scale (NBPG 2007):

I experimented and succeeded in producing cow dung gas in a coffee can, just sufficient to light a flame for five seconds. It was enough to satisfy me. I have grasped the principle. I constructed a small experimental plant outside my window. It gave me two hours work a day. People came to see it in one’s and two’s and tens and busloads. They asked me questions, took notes and went home and forgot about it.