BIOENERGY OFFERS AFRICA A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Ben Payton

Producing energy from bio-based materials, means for Africa to take a huge leap towards net zero carbon emissions. It will, they say, also boost rural livelihoods and reduce the cost of importing fuel.

Others, however, insist that biofuels are a recipe for disaster – potentially resulting in deforestation, the eviction of rural smallholders and the loss of land that should be used for food production.

Bio-based materials can provide energy in multiple ways. Certain crops can be used to produce ethanol, which can then be blended with gasoline to produce fuel for vehicles. Ethanol can also be used in cooking stoves, providing a cleaner alternative to wood or charcoal. Alternatively, crops – or their waste products – can be burned to generate electricity.

Of course, Africa already relies on biomass for energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that over 80% of the continent’s population uses coal – for cooking.

But production of biofuels on a commercial scale in Africa has been very limited – the giant commercial biofuel plantations seen in Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia remain uncommon in Africa.

AN UNTAPPED OPPORTUNITY?

British entrepreneur Richard Bennett set up Sunbird Bioenergy in 2015, seeing an “untapped opportunity” to use biofuels to help provide Zambia with cheaper fuel. In the absence of domestic oil production, the country has long been forced to import petroleum through Tanzania.

Zambia is, like many African countries, at the mercy of volatile global oil with the result, Bennett says, that fuel is

“really ridiculously expensive”.

Sunbird Bioenergy is now using in Luapula province that is designed to produce 120m litres of ethanol a year. The company says that this will be equivalent to 20% of Zambia’s petroleum use and will help the country reduce its import bill by $100m.

But countries like Zambia have a long way to go before they can replicate Brazil, where over 1.5m people are employed directly and indirectly in ethanol production. Brazil’s success in enabling a much greater role for ethanol has depended on its ability to require fuel vehicles” that can run on fuel with a very high ethanol content.

Petrol sold in Brazil has a standard ethanol content of 27% – and many vehicles can run purely on ethanol. Elsewhere, ethanol can make up no more than 10-15% of gasoline at the pump. In the absence of a domestic car manufacturing industry in most African countries, governments have fewer levers to stimulate the growth of a biofuels industry.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT?

Another opportunity comes from sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Yitatek Yitbarek, regional manager for Africa at the Roundtable for Sustainable Biomaterials, says that Ethiopian Airlines is one of many airlines to show interest in Africa’s SAF-producing potential.

“They are looking at opportunities for producing SAF and partnering with potential investors in that sector,” he says.

Production of SAF from biofuels is currently negligible, making up less than 0.1% of aviation fuel used worldwide. A huge ramping-up of production will be needed in the coming years. The EU is currently considering targets for

SAF to provide as much as 85% of aviation fuel by 2050.

A 2019 study by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the South African branch of the World Wildlife Fund found a “meaningful” potential to produce jet fuel sustainability of biofuel production in Africa last year. He says that considproductive land to produce energy crops is at the heart of the challenge for Africa.

“Depending on the feedstock and its production,” he explains, “adverse environmental using biomaterials in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Gulf of Guinea region. It warned, however, that the amount of land available to produce biofuels will substantially decline by 2050, due to the need to grow more food.

Food Versus Fuel

land to provide fuel or to grow food is perhaps the thorniest issue in the biofuels debate.

Stefan Schmidt, a microbiology professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, co-authored a study on the

Multiple NGOs have fiercely criticised European policymakers for allowing crops to be used as biofuels. T&E, an environmental NGO, describes the EU’s promotion of crop biofuels as “the dumbest thing the EU has done in the name of the climate”. It argues that Europe’s burning of wheat, rapeseed surging food prices.

“Certainly, food production should have priority over energy crop production in case of food security challenges,” says Schmidt. But, he says, it allow for crops to be used for energy on land unsuitable for food production – providing the land is properly monitored and managed.

Bennett agrees that biofuel production should take place only on land that