SANF 07 No 48 – by Tigere Chagutah
Zimbabwe has launched the first commercial biodiesel processing plant in southern Africa, underlining the region’s resolve to move to cleaner and renewable sources of energy.
This comes amid concerns about the impact of fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas) on global warming as well as depletion of the world’s petroleum reserves.
The biodiesel processing plant, which can produce biodiesel from any vegetable oil-bearing seed, has a capacity to produce between 90 – 100 million litres of diesel annually making it the largest of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.
At full capacity the plant will meet 10 percent of Zimbabwe’s annual diesel requirements, which translates to foreign currency savings of US$80 million annually.
Zimbabwe, like most countries in southern Africa, is largely dependent on imported petroleum fuels to power its industrial production and transport systems.
The recurrence of petroleum supply bottlenecks in some of the world’s leading producers and the need to address global warming has strengthened the resolve in the region to look for alternative fuel sources.
Meanwhile, world fuel prices have risen steadily since 2001 prompting plant-based biofuel initiatives in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, and the United Republic of Tanzania as well as Zimbabwe.
Commissioning the biodiesel processing plant located on the outskirts of the capitical Harare, President Robert Mugabe lauded efforts to respond to the global call for mitigation of global warming through the transition to cleaner fuels.
“The world economy is facing growing exposure to the vagaries of global warming and the general retardation of petroleum fuels.
“In order to safeguard the socio-economic interests of present and future generations, more attentive focus must increasingly be placed on the development of environmentally-friendly technologies,” said President Mugabe.
Several countries in the region are growing the oil rich Jatropha curcas plant for the production of cheaper and cleaner biodiesel.
Soya beans, cotton and maize have also been identified as viable alternatives.
However, unlike these other plants, jatropha is a perennial plant, yielding oil seed for decades after planting.
The jatropha plant is more efficient in terms of land use than other seed oil crops, grows well in arid soils and does not compete with edible crops for land use.
At more than 35 percent oil content, the plant yields more oil than cotton and soya which both have oil content of 18 percent, while it also has a higher average yield per hectare (eight tonnes), compared to cotton (two tonnes) and soya (three tonnes).
Moreover, as jatropha grows, it stores moisture, stabilises soils and slows down desertification.
Southern Africa has vast expanses of semi-arid to arid regions where jatropha could grow well and halt the advance of deserts as the dry-out effects of global warming intensify in the region.
Speaking at the commissioning of the biodiesel plant, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono said the country’s central bank has set aside funds to support a jatropha feed stock growing programme.
“Under the programme beneficiaries of Zimbabwe’s land reform programme will receive support to grow jatropha on marginal land as the country works towards its target of achieving fuel self-sufficiency by 2010,” said Gono.
With support from the central bank, the Zimbabwe government proposes to set up one biodiesel plant for each of its ten provinces by 2010.
However, experts note the need to guard against diverting productive land and food crops to the production of biofuels at the expense of meeting regional food security requirements.
Although biofuel production will increase farmers’ incomes, there is a need to resist the monetary lure of wholesale change over to production of jatropha, as this could have serious negative impacts on grain cultivation and food security.
President Mugabe also noted the huge potential and strong synergies the biodiesel plant has for other downstream industries, especially for producers of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals.
Processing of oil seeds leads to the production of seed cake for stock feed which is vital for livestock producers.
Another spin-off from the biodiesel plant is the production of several high-value chemical by-products which are essential in the production of industrial lubricants. sardc.net
