The Bioenergy Conundrum: Biomass, Biogas and Biofuels

1
The Bioenergy Conundrum Biomass, Biogas and
Biofuels

• Pierre Dembélé
• Mali-Folkecenter Nyetaa
• International Parliamentary Hearing for West
  African Legislators
• 20 21 September 2008 in Akosombo, Ghana

2
Overviw of Bioenergy

• Biomass include
• residues from agriculture and forestry
  (groundnut shells, bagasse, rice stalks, cotton
  stems, typha Australis, etc)
• municipal solid waste or sewage,
• Energy crops and biofuels,
• Firewood
• The modernization of biomass embraces a range of
  differing technologies
• Biomass-fired electric power plants/CHP
• Liquid fuels e.g bioethanol and biofuel
• Biogas production technology

3
Advantages of Bioenergy for Africa

• Wide availability of the ressources
• Convertible to all the major energy carriers
  (electricity, gases, liquil fuel, heat)
• Potential to contribute to greenhouse gas
  reductions and other environmental objectives
• Improve livelihoods of rural peoples (much value
  added and income-generation from bioenergy
  systems is retained locally and can help to
  reduce rural poverty)

4
Biogas

• Biogas is energy from anaerobic fermentation of
  organic waste
• Biogas can be use for
• Lighting and cooking in rural areas
• Electricity production
• Pilot projects have demonstrated small-scale
  biogas production for cooking and lighting
  purposes but commercial production of biogas has
  not taken place

5
Cogeneration in Sugar Industry of Mauritius

• Accounts for close to 40 of a 651 MW national
  generation capacity (of which 25 bagasse)
• Began with smaller installations (1.5MW-5MW,
  recently installed 82MW plant
• Keys success factors include
• equitable sharing of ownerhip of revenues from
  cogeneration which ensures smallest low-income
  farmer gets a portion of revenue
• Strong consistent policy support (close
  collaboration between policy makers, sugar
  industry and utility)
• Government played key role in power purchace
  agreements and setting feed-in tariff which
  reduces risk to investors

6
Benefits of Cogeneration

• Diversified sources of power thus providing
  protection against unsustainable high oil price
  increases
• Cogeneration offers alternative revenue stream to
  Mauritius key economic-sugar industry
• Attractive job generation (at the sugar cane
  plantation level) and enterprise creation
  potential (local technology dev)

7
Jatropha Biofuel
8
Biofuel projects in Mali

• Jatropha oil was first use in Mali in 1987 by GTZ
  to run milling machines
• That project stopped in 1996 when comparisons
  between jatropha and diesel showed jatropha to be
  more expensive
• Mutifunctional plaform projects implemented by
  UNIDO between 1996-2000 and running on Jatropha
  oil
• Demonstration of the use of jatropha in transport
  sector

9
Jatropha-based rural electrification

• 300 kW of gensets, to run on locally produced
  Jatropha bio-oil
• Jatropha plantation established
• A mini grid of about 15 Km for electricity
  distribution
• 15 years of clean electricity production will
  transform the local economy.
• 10 000 peoples will benefit from the project
• Electricity is already catalysing local SME/SMI
  development and job creation

UNIDO Biofuels Workshop, Accra, Ghana, Dec 2007
10
Impact of the project

• The replacement of diesel by jatropha oil save
  money that goes to local people
• Collection and selling of seed provide additional
  income for local people
• The population have access to electricity which
  facilitate the processing of their agriculture
  products with added value at the village level,
  and the local economy is stimulated.
• and this can reduce poverty and increase
  standards of living for rural peoples

11
Main drivers of Biofuel in Mali

• Diversification of energy sources and lower
  exposure to the price volatility of the
  international oil market
• Rural development needs
• Land availability - Mali has huge potential for
  biofuel production in terms of land availability
  for feedstock cultivation

Source ONAP
12
Political support for Jatropha cultivation in the
World
13
Commercial Jatropha cultivation in Africa
14
Barriers to bioenergy development

• Lack of institutional/policy framework
• Insufficient coordination between actors (even
  among various ministries)
• Private sector interest limited due to caution
  and lack of information on profitability
• Lack of finance
• Limited technical skills of rural populations

15
Lessons learnt for future action in Africa -
planting the seeds for sustainable development
biofuel projects
16
Social considerations

• Avoid competition with food production through
  small scale exploitation
• Many small scale projects can produce as much
  biofuel more sustainably than a few large scale
  monoculture projects
• Prioritise local use of biofuel to bring maximum
  benefits to local population
• Maintain existing land ownership and tenure
  patterns to avoid social unrest
• Rather projects should be designed to benefit
  African communities first

17
Environmental protection

• Vast monoculture plantations as seen in Latin
  America and Asia can devastate the fragile
  ecosystems and bring untold social damage
• Large irrigated plantations deplete underground
  water resources, in times of increased drought
  and lack of rain due to climate change
• Valorise all sub-products like press cake as
  organic fertiliser or animal feed
• Explore possibilities for intercropping, which
  can improve yields of both food and oil producing
  crops

18
Creation of favourable policy finance
framework

• Push for bundling of Jatropha plantation projects
  for carbon finance (CDM)
• Sensitise local regional Financial Institutions
  on Jatropha
• Create favourable national regional policy to
  promote sustainable development (Pricing, Quality
  standards , sustainability criteria)

19
Aw ni Cé ! Merci ! Thank You!