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).
Article continues
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).
Article continues
Saturday, June 24, 2006
EU in doubt over alternatives to oil - more reasons to consider a Biopact with Africa
Well here at the BioPact we saw this coming. At the turn of the century, a few years ago, the EU started looking at biofuels, and the enthusiasm for ethanol and biodiesel grew quickly. Then realism set it, and it became apparent that the EU simply doesn't have enough agricultural resources (especially land), to make the green transition. Today it is finally acknowledging that Europe will not get there alone. This is what we have been saying all along.
That's why we made our own proposition: cooperate with Africa, where land is plenty, investments in agriculture are needed, and where millions of poor farmers would gladly become energy farmers if they can produce for the world's largest economy.
Euractiv: Alternatives to replace oil in transport are "urgently needed" but a long-term vision on what technology is best suited to replace it is still up in the air, said Fabrizio Barbaso, Deputy Director General at the Commission's transport and energy department. Speaking at a conference on "Future Energy Sources for Transport" in Brussels, Barbaso indicated that the Commission had already identified three main candidates for the job - biofuels, natural gas, and hydrogen.
But he said each one of these present "tremendous technological challenges" that are just starting to be addressed, for instance by joint EU research efforts such as technology platforms (on biofuels, hydrogen, etc.). Natural gas currently enjoys little support from automakers or the oil industry, meaning the technology would need heavy subsidies to be maintained in the contest for oil substitution.
Transport accounts for some 71% of all oil consumption in the EU, according to the Commission. But the automotive sector alone is 98% dependent on oil, according to the French national petroleum institute (IFP). In its Green Paper: "Towards a European Strategy for the Security of Energy Supply" (2000), the Commission set out an objective to substitute 20% of traditional automotive fuels with alternatives by the year 2020. A year later, the Commission presented a communication on alternative fuels, identifying three potential alternative ranges of fuels as the most promising: biofuels, natural gas and hydrogen (see Euractiv's Dossier
on alternative fuels).
"My feeling is that we have not yet reached [an agreement on] policies largely supported by all parties," Barbaso said. And until significant progress is made, he said the Commission considers energy efficiency as its "number one priority".
A revision of the Commission's long term strategy (White paper) on transport is due to be presented on 22 June. The new document, seen by EurActiv, for the first time introduces a section on energy. It recommends action be pursued on various fronts, such as reducing fuel consumption, supporting research and bringing mature new technologies to the market through standard setting and regulations (such as Euro 5).
But it also recognises that much is still to be agreed at EU level, in particular under the European energy policy currently in the early stages of definition.
Positions:
Anders Röj, a fuels expert with Volvo and head of fuels and lubricants at the European car manufacturer lobby ACEA, said industry needs long term certainty on technologies if it is to make the right investment choices. "We cannot have [a different] fuel of the year" every time, he said. He indicated that so-called second generation biofuels based on biomass gasification were currently the most efficient and less costly type of alternative fuels. But he added that easier access to new biomass resources should be provided, together with the related logistics. The aim, he said, should be to develop an "integrated biorefinery" concept by 2020 that can integrate different production options for biofuels.
Carmakers and oil companies are busy trying to develop more energy-efficient cars. Every year, Shell organises a fuel economy competition for students and semi professional independent teams. The 2006 edition was won by an ethanol-powered vehicle and was attended by EU energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.
Volvo recently presented a new "Multi-Fuel" prototype car that can run on five different fuels: hythane (10% hydrogen and 90% methane), biomethane, compressed natural gas (CNG), E85 bioethanol (85% bioethanol and 15% petrol) and petrol.
Chemicals manufacturer DuPont and oil major BP on 20 June announced that they developed a new biofuel called 'biobutanol', which they say produces 30% more energy than ethanol. According to the two companies, biobutanol can be blended with traditional in proportions higher than 10% without making changes to engine technology. Current engines are said to be able to cope with biofuel blends of up to 10%.
Euractiv.
Article continues
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