THE CASE FOR BIOFUEL: The Magic Bullet for Energy Security and Rural Development in Africa

July 16, 2015

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by Olatomiwa Bifarin* (Advanced Biofuels USA) Around 770,000 BC, it was fire, at some point – wood, dung and coal, to the now-ominous fossil fuels. This is the evolution of energy, and today the evolution must be accelerated to save our prized planet from imminent destruction – among several other reasons.

It is no longer news that the world faces a barrage of conundrum, at the acme of the list are global climate change, and energy security. This has led to development of several alternatives to our current energy sources: harmful black carbon-producing fuels such as wood and dung, as well as fossil fuels. These alternatives include hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, solar, wind power, and clean-burning biomass fuel. Of these, I will argue that biofuels will prove to be the strongest candidate, particularly for a continent like Africa.

Climate Change: The heat is on, and up it's going.

A 2014 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that scientists are now more than 95% confident (extremely confident) that global warming is anthropogenic – from human activities – primarily through the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, and through deforestation[1].

In fact, a considerable amount of damage has already been done to our climate system, a 2014 World Bank report has shown. [2] The world is already locked into about 1.5⁰C warming above pre-industrial levels, and evidence has shown that this will only get worse if we don’t reverse our extant activities that incite global warming [2]. In the same vein, the world is set to heat up by 4⁰C in some 60 years from now if immediate, concerted effort is jettisoned.

And what does this climate change means for Africa?

In the most recent climate change vulnerability index (2015) 7 out of 10 countries listed under extreme risk are from the African continent: Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Ethiopia, Philippines, Central African Republic and Eritrea.[3]

In an anticipated high warming scenario – about 4⁰C– C0₂ level will rise by 1550ppm, global sea will rise by 0.26-0.59 meters; there will be 30-50% decline in water availability in Southern Africa; and 15-35% decrease of agricultural yield across the continent, a huge risk of hunger. [4]

Here are some present day examples of what the effects could look like: a cyclone aggravated flood in Mozambique in the year 2000 affected up to 2 million people, resulting into 800 deaths. In East Africa, one of the deadliest droughts in modern time occurred between 2011 and 2012. Compared to the 1912 levels, about 80% of the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro have disappeared, courtesy of global warming. [5]

These changes in weather patterns subsequently trickle down to affect agriculture, food security, human health, national security, among others. For example, East Africa is facing the worst food crisis in the 21^st century. According to Oxfam International, about 13 million people are in urgent need of food across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia [6]

The Case for Biofuel: No no, fossil fuel...

Needless to say, the use of fossil fuel has been the major trigger of global warming. Hence, it’s high time we changed to other less carbon laden sources of energy. We at Advanced Biofuels USA believe the way out of this mess is through the rigorous use of biofuels. And this is not a blind belief, it is what bonafide research has shown over and over again.

Here is one: according to the Global Renewable Fuel Alliance, biofuels are proven to reduce harmful greenhouse gases [GHGs] from 40% to 90% compared to fossil fuels around the world. [7] In a paper published in the Applied Energy journal in February 2014 using an assessment model to study the impact of expanded global biofuels policies on energy and agriculture: “Conventional oil use is reduced by 4–8% in the expanded biofuel scenarios, which results in a decrease of CO2 emissions on the order of 1–2 GtCO2/year by mid-century from the global transportation sector”[8]

Although the paper stated a potential slight increase in the price of bioenergy crops, “Producer prices of sugar and corn reach levels about 12% and 7% above year 2005 levels, while the increased competition for land causes the price of food crops ... to increase by 1–2%” [8] Given the ever advancing biofuel technologies, the use of non-edible products such as grasses and agricultural waste products will decrease such effects to its barest minimum.

Rural development: how biofuel can make us healthier and richer.

According to the agricultural and rural development 2013 data provided by the World Bank, rural population makes up 47% of the entire world’s population. And rural population is almost synonymous with poverty, as close to four fifths of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. [9] As expected, the African continent has one of the largest percentages of rural population in the world with 63%. That is, for every 100 persons you meet in sub-Sahara Africa 63 will be living in rural areas, and based on the World Bank's world’s poorest people statistics – of those 63 people, about four-fifths will be extremely poor. This is just a conservative statistic, my instinct and familiarity tells me that the number is way too under estimated. [9]

So, what does biofuel have to do with this? Rural population all over the world is riddled with several converging issues – unemployment, health problems, lack of electricity, among others. And yet empirical evidence has shown that the rigorous integration of biofuel into the economy could help solve some of these problems as an add-on benefit to mitigating climate change.

Taking cues from some of the smartest biofuel economies in the world – according to the Brazilian Association of Vehicle Manufacturers, an ethanol-fuelled car generates 22 more jobs than a gasoline-fuelled vehicle. Therefore, generating new jobs at the same time as protecting the existing ones. In fact, a study by Earley and McKeown shows that an average ethanol plant generates up to 150 permanent jobs in its neighborhood. [10] After all, the capital investments needed to generate a job in the biofuel industry is far less to than that in the gasoline industry. [11]

Apart from the use of biofuel as a transportation fuel, another great benefit of biofuel is its use in cookstoves. It has been estimated that 3 billion people in the world cook their food with inefficient and polluting cook stoves every day. Engendering 4.3 million deaths annually as a result of exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fire, implies that a life would be claimed by cookstove smoke every 8 seconds. This mortality rate surpasses the death from malaria, HIV and tuberculosis combined. [12]

The use of biofuels such as ethanol as fuels in cookstoves will drastically reduce exposures to deadly cookstove smoke. In addition, the burden on women and children in rural areas harvesting biomass (wood and dung) for cooking will be jettisoned.

Apparently, there is more to the adoption of biofuels than climate change mitigation. It can literally dispel the stigmas of rural areas in Africa. Which is one more reason Advanced Biofuels USA believes that energy policies in Africa should reflect an aggressive adoption of biofuel in the energy mix – sooner rather than later.

Sources

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] (2014) ‘Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers’ http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf

World Bank Group, Washington DC. (2014). ‘Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal’ http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20595

Verisk Maplecroft (2015) ‘Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas vulnerability Index’ http://maplecroft.com/portfolio/new-analysis/2014/10/29/climate-change-and-lack-food-security-multiply-risks-conflict-and-civil-unrest-32-countries-maplecroft/

Oil Brown and Alec Crawford (2009) ‘Climate change and security in Africa, Nordic African Ministers of Foreign Affairs Forum’ http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2009/climate_change_security_africa.pdf

Bhavna Deonarain, (2014) ‘8 ways climate change is already affecting Africa’ http://350africa.org/2014/12/12/8-ways-climate-change-is-already-affecting-africa/

Oxfam International (2012) ‘A Dangerous Delay: The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa’ https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/story/bp-dangerous-delay-horn-africa-drought-180112-en_4.pdf

Renewable Fuels Association [RFA] (2014) ‘Biofuels are the Answer to Reducing Global Transport GHG Emissions: GRFA’ http://www.ethanolrfa.org/news/entry/biofuels-are-the-answer-to-reducing-global-transport-ghg-emissions-grfa/

Marshall Wise, James Dooley, Patrick Luckow, Katherine Calvin and Page Kyle (2014) ‘Agriculture, land use, energy and carbon emission impacts of global biofuel mandates to mid-century’ Applied Energy, 2014, vol. 114, issue C, pages 763-773 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261913006867

World Bank ‘Agriculture & Rural Development Data’ http://data.worldbank.org/topic/agriculture-and-rural-development

Earley, J. and A. Mckeown (2009) ‘Smart choices for biofuels’, report, Worldwatch Institute and the Sierra Club, USA https://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/biofuels.pdf

Walter A. et al (2008) ‘Analysis of environmental and social impacts of bio-ethanol production in Brazil’

Global Alliance for Cook Stoves. http://carbonfinanceforcookstoves.org/media/General-Cookstoves-Factsheet-English-Final.pdf

*Olatomiwa Bifarin, while studying for his Masters degree in Biotechnology at The Catholic University of America served as an intern at Advanced Biofuels USA, representing the organization and reports on events in Washington, DC, and nearby areas. He writes this article from his family home in Nigeria before returning to the US to work on his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia.