Biofuels Unviable Alternative in South Africa – Expert

by Paige Muller (Creamer Media's Engineering News) Owing to biofuels being too expensive to manufacture, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Business School Energy Leadership Centre director Dr Rod Crompton says this makes them a commercially unviable energy source.

He tells Engineering News that, despite the fact that global renewable- energy consumption rose to a new high last year – accounting for 3.6% of the world’s total energy consumption – renewables are still an insignificant player in the global energy market.

“Growth in renewables is rapid but it is coming off a very low base, and most of that is in electricity production rather than biofuels. Currently, mineral oils still constitute more than one-third of the world’s energy consumed and are likely to continue to do so for a while.”

Crompton states that biofuels have been slow to launch in South Africa, owing to uncompetitive production costs, despite international pressure to reduce carbon emissions. He emphasises that, “even if oil was priced at $100/bbl, it would still be less expensive than biofuel alternatives”.

He advocates for much more research and development into technology development and processing efficiency to make biofuels viable.

“If effective technology existed that could produce biofuel at a competitive market price, then I am sure we would all be putting biofuel in our cars. Unfortunately, without significant subsidisation and protection from governments, biofuel is just too expensive to be price competitive.”

However, fluctuations in the rand:dollar exchange rate, the oil price and the price of other agricultural commodities that may prove more profitable to farmers, have made developing a sustainable model difficult.

Wits has established the Energy Leadership Centre – which will accept admissions for postgraduate studies from August 2018 for commencement in January 2019 – to help the African energy industry prepare for future technological advancements that are beginning to reshape the face of the global energy industry. READ MORE