Advanced BioFuels USA

by Paul Michael Keichel (Mail & Guardian)  We are finally gathering momentum towards a regulated cannabis industry in South Africa. But much of the narrative tunnel-visions on the so-called recreational or medicinal markets. Decades of prohibition has had us forget that, fundamentally, cannabis is an agricultural commodity, which can provide us with not only things like protein- and omega-rich nutrition for humans and excellent fodder for animals, but also multi-use fibre, biomass and other by-products.

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Hemp grows happily and cost-effectively in soils unsuitable for nutritional crops — so it does not compromise food security — and can even suck up heavy metals and contaminants from places such as mine dumps. Great, so long as humans and animals don’t then go on to consume it. From the resulting sugar- and oil-rich biomass, one can then use clever bio-reactive and fermentation wizardry to turn that hemp into bioethanol and biodiesel — together biofuel — which, if produced mindfully, can be carbon-neutral overall. This is because the carbon in the hemp was pulled out of the atmosphere when the plant grew, instead of — as with petroleum- and coal-based products — being mined from underground, having been buried there millions of years ago. 

With vast swathes of otherwise non-arable and underused land in our country, but with the benefit of the African sun, rain and climate, we are able, if some clever and entrepreneurial people are permitted to get on with it, to grow ourselves into a degree of energy autonomy that doesn’t see us still accused of being one of the big polluters. Imagine driving in a car or flying in a plane, large parts of which are fabricated from hemp by-products, fuelled by hemp itself … Look at you, you grinning hippie!

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Vitally, there are already tens of thousands of tonnes of cannabis being grown in poor, rural regions of South Africa. That weed used to supply the black market, which has, at least for these people, largely dried up as a source of income — being an unintended consequence of the 2018 constitutional court judgment that allows connoisseurs and self-medicators to cultivate and consume in private. To the extent that this cannabis does not and might never meet government standards for human consumption there is little good reason that all of this cannabis cannot be off-taken and paid for by industry hubs/cooperatives, thereby fuelling our larger economy while boosting local, rural economies.

I must conclude by saying that I’m a lawyer, not an expert on hemp biofuels and construction, nor an economist, agronomist or bio-technologist. But I propose to start this discussion openly and so hope that whatever contradictions or criticisms may be forthcoming are accompanied by constructive guidance and solutions, as would serve to move our country onwards and upwards out of the slump that really predated, but was aggravated by, Covid-19.  READ MORE