Sugar, cassava to serve as energy resource base in Nigeria
Here at the BioPact, we have often sung the praise of cassava's potential as an excellent tropical energy crop. A researcher with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, (IITA), Dr. Lateef Sanni, recently announced that the starchy root crop is now going to play a prominent role in Nigeria's quest to diversify its energy resource base.
Nigeria? Africa's major oil producing country? Why would it need biofuels? Well simply because there's a big difference between exporting crude oil, and refining it into usable fuels. Nigeria does the first, not the latter. Its fuel import bill is very high. And given that it is a tropical country with a big land base and lots of poor farmers, energy farming make sense here.
Dr Sanni: "an energy mix that will make agriculture a source of energy will be good for the country as it will diversify the nation’s economy base through the utilisation of biofuels", notably ethanol and biodiesel. Sanni explained that the development will save the country some foreign exchange and also reduce the dependence on expensive fuel importats.
The Tide recalls that a senior officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had said that efforts to boost the utilisation of bio-fuels made Nigeria to obtain a huge grant from the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Partnership.
He said that the approach was meant to support detailed feasibility study of the target locations pointing out that, alternative fuel programme would return long term benefit to Nigeria when functional.
Meanwhile, The Tide gathered that the bio-fuel programme has the capability of making about 200,000 job opportunity available to Nigerians.
Other benefits of the alternative fuel programme reports say include reduction of environmental hazards, availability of lubricants for engines and diversification of the economy.
As a capital intensive project, the Managing Director of NNPC Mr. Funso Kupolokun, has said that more than 67 million dollars will be required as investment outlay for oil and gas projects with linkages with agriculture between now and 2008.
He said that renewable energy will be a major plank on which the sectoral linkage between oil and gas and agricultural sector.
The Tide Online (Port Harcourt, Nigeria).
Nigeria? Africa's major oil producing country? Why would it need biofuels? Well simply because there's a big difference between exporting crude oil, and refining it into usable fuels. Nigeria does the first, not the latter. Its fuel import bill is very high. And given that it is a tropical country with a big land base and lots of poor farmers, energy farming make sense here.
Dr Sanni: "an energy mix that will make agriculture a source of energy will be good for the country as it will diversify the nation’s economy base through the utilisation of biofuels", notably ethanol and biodiesel. Sanni explained that the development will save the country some foreign exchange and also reduce the dependence on expensive fuel importats.
The Tide recalls that a senior officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had said that efforts to boost the utilisation of bio-fuels made Nigeria to obtain a huge grant from the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Partnership.
He said that the approach was meant to support detailed feasibility study of the target locations pointing out that, alternative fuel programme would return long term benefit to Nigeria when functional.
Meanwhile, The Tide gathered that the bio-fuel programme has the capability of making about 200,000 job opportunity available to Nigerians.
Other benefits of the alternative fuel programme reports say include reduction of environmental hazards, availability of lubricants for engines and diversification of the economy.
As a capital intensive project, the Managing Director of NNPC Mr. Funso Kupolokun, has said that more than 67 million dollars will be required as investment outlay for oil and gas projects with linkages with agriculture between now and 2008.
He said that renewable energy will be a major plank on which the sectoral linkage between oil and gas and agricultural sector.
The Tide Online (Port Harcourt, Nigeria).
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