In a recent article, “Biofuel: Africa’s new oil?”, the author Kimani Chege maintains that biofuels hold great promise for the
energy starving African countries facing the triple challenge of achieving
food and energy security and sustainable
development. Biofuels provide an opportunity to harness Africa’s vast biomass resources. And for this many
crops like corn, rapeseed and jatropha are available. Liquid biofuels like biodiesel are derived from rapeseed oil and bioethanol is made from sugarcane, maize and other starchy crops. Global production of biofuels consists primarily of ethanol.
Though keen to transform their vast arable farmlands into the next ‘oil fields’, African countries are by no means a participant in the biofuels race in spite of having great potential. “The question is not so much whether Africa is ready for a biofuel revolution, but rather can Africa afford to miss the biofuels opportunity?” Experts feel.
The main reason for Africa lagging behind is that despite well-established national agricultural
research centres there is little research to improve crops to yield more ethanol and biodiesel. According to experts, many African countries such as Kenya and Mozambique, do not have a large enough capacity for biofuels research. The trend however seems to be reversing recently. Several African countries now have biofuel research projects underway. Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava, is keen to use it as an alternative to fossil fuel. It aims to produce cassava ethanol worth over US$150 million every year. It''s plans to establish a US $100 million ‘biofuel
town’ near Lagos will create a 600 hectare settlement of 1,000 bioenergy experts who will work on technologies to improve production. Malawi currently uses gasoline blended with ten per cent locally-made sugarcane ethanol. Mozambique, has developed an effective biofuel sector based on sorghum and sugarcane, and the government has set aside over US$700 million for biofuel research, production and promotion. Energy experts say Mozambique has potential to be a ''biofuel superpower''. Scientists from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) are developing sorghum varieties and hybrids that have higher amount of sugar-rich juice in their stalks for Mozambique. ICRISAT is also working with a Mozambican company to establish a facility capable of producing 100,000 litres of sorghum ethanol a year. The venture, if successful, could boost the livelihood of 5,000 smallholder farmers through contract farming.
Increased attention on biofuel research and development is, however, bringing a new debate to the continent. There is the worry that an increase in the use of food crops such as maize, cassava and sorghum is likely to increase the food price of most staple foods in Africa notably corn. Price rise will depend on whether or not oil crops are planted on arable land that could otherwise be used for growing food crops, and whether water is diverted from food crops to irrigate the biofuel plantations.
The debate of crops for food versus crops for biofuels remains one of the major problems yet to be resolved. Experts say producing food for the population should have priority, and suggest that new developments from research programmes will keep the biofuel sector going. Current biofuels research focuses too much on increased production efficiency rather than quality products. There are opportunities for many other biofuel products and applications besides ethanol and biodiesel. For instance, home-use fuel, such as paraffin, wood and coal, could be replaced by ethanol gel, made by mixing ethanol with a thickening agent and water. The gel-fuel burns without smoke, and so does not cause respiratory problems associated with current fuels used in homes.
There is need to diversify the sources and methods used to generate biofuel products, according to Mpoko Bokanga, director general of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation. Addressing an African conference on biofuels, Bokanga said one possibility is to move from ethanol to butanol fuel production. Butanol can be manufactured from corn and molasses, has a high energy content and can be shipped through existing fuel pipelines. It is safer to use than ethanol and gasoline, as it is less likely to evaporate into the surrounding air eliminating fire risk. However, there has been negligible effort to promote butanol because of low production yields compared to ethanol. The debate is currently on. It remains to be seen whether the African continent will embark upon the biofuel energy revolution or miss it altogether. DNBhatnagar