Nigeria's biogas potential estimated at 600,000 MW

Quicknote bioenergy potential
Even though Nigeria is an oil and gas producer, the country faces a severe energy crisis because of continuous supply disruptions. Nigeria's centralised oil and gas distribution networks are easy targets for rebels, energy hackers and criminals alike.

But a Nigerian Sweden-based biotechnologist, Dr. Ade Abdulrahim, says that his native country has a resource that can provide a much safer, because decentralised flow of energy. The technology is simple, easy to manage, highly efficient, renewable, economic and can be located independently of supply lines (contrary to natural gas thermal stations). The resource would take away urban pollution and waste streams, a major problem in Nigeria's rapidly growing cities. We are of course talking about biogas. According to the scientist, Nigeria could generate as much as 600,000MW of it merely by using the existing organic waste streams (and not dedicated biomass crops). This potential comes down to roughly 4740 gigawatt hours of electricity, enough to meet the current electricity needs of around 58 million Nigerians (Nigeria's per capita electricity consumption stands at around 81 kwh per year / compare to the U.S. average at 13,000). The expert, who was one amongst the many Nigerians who attended the just-concluded Diaspora Forum on Science and Technology [*.doc] in Abuja, said he was confident that the Nigerian Federal Government could exploit this potential by investing a mere US$2bn into the technology.

"The calculation I have now is that compared with the proposed investment in the Mambila Hydropower project, which is costing the Federal Government about $2bn to generate 2000MW is that investing the same amount on biogas technology can give the country 600,000MW", he said. Abdulrahim whose previous efforts to sell the idea to Nigerian authorities failed to receive necessary attention, described the technology as combination of microbiology and biotechnology systems, making use of household and municipal waste, especially faeces and biomass refuse to generate the green gas.

Explaining to a lay audience how the technology works, the expert said that through a system of waste management, "we can collect refuse, sort it out and put it on top of a membrane (a kind of filter) and compress it using a compactor so that no oxygen is allowed in it to enable it to ferment well" [anaerobic digestion].

"The smallest system would consist of a 1MW generator, but a typical plant designed for the country would be made up of 6 such generators with a lifetime of 18-25 years", he said. This kind of technology could thrive in most of the nation's capital cities and other major towns in the country because of the vast amounts of organic waste they produce.

In this period of epileptic and erratic power supplies that are hampering business development in the country, the biotechnologist said that establishing biogas-driven power plants could prove a better and more efficient alternative to other sources of power generation. The Nigerian said he is currently supervising an on-going project in Tallin, Estonia, using the same technology.

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biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: waste :: biogas :: Nigeria ::