Zimbabwe's biofuels program: from enthusiasm to realism
Quicnote bioenergy policies
Last year the University of Zimbabwe made a feasibility study which showed that locally produced biodiesel and ethanol offer a sustainable solution to the country's energy crisis. Immediately afterwards, Harare Polytechnic launched a first biodiesel project, using jatropha and involving poor farmers. The buying price of jatropha seeds was benchmarked against international diesel prices to promote farmers to grow the crop.
The initiative caused a lot of excitement in the country, but almost a year after the launch progress towards the commercial production of the actual fuel has been checked by operational challenges, Zimbabwe's official Newsnet said. The case shows that producing biofuels is more complex than just planting crops and turning them into a liquid fuel.
Several implementation steps have gone wrong, and many factors are to blame:
Senegal for example, first analysed and recognised its own weaknesses and consequently called in the help of foreign expertise (Brazilian agronomists and Indian entrepreneurs). Maybe South-South or North-South cooperation is indeed an important part of the strategies developing countries can use in getting a biofuels industry off the ground [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: Zimbabwe ::
Last year the University of Zimbabwe made a feasibility study which showed that locally produced biodiesel and ethanol offer a sustainable solution to the country's energy crisis. Immediately afterwards, Harare Polytechnic launched a first biodiesel project, using jatropha and involving poor farmers. The buying price of jatropha seeds was benchmarked against international diesel prices to promote farmers to grow the crop.
The initiative caused a lot of excitement in the country, but almost a year after the launch progress towards the commercial production of the actual fuel has been checked by operational challenges, Zimbabwe's official Newsnet said. The case shows that producing biofuels is more complex than just planting crops and turning them into a liquid fuel.
Several implementation steps have gone wrong, and many factors are to blame:
- lack of extension and educational services: participating farmers experience a lack of follow-up programs for the growing of jatropha trees; extension workers said they lack the knowledge and resources to spread information about growing energy crops which is a critical stage for the success of the whole project
- lack of capacity and coordination between key institutions, resulting in a lack of efficient response to implementing the policies
- lack of committment of secondary institutions because of uncertainty on the level of higher institutions; e.g. the infrastructural development bank has hesitated to put up the necessary infrastructures for processing the seeds into biodiesel
Senegal for example, first analysed and recognised its own weaknesses and consequently called in the help of foreign expertise (Brazilian agronomists and Indian entrepreneurs). Maybe South-South or North-South cooperation is indeed an important part of the strategies developing countries can use in getting a biofuels industry off the ground [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: Zimbabwe ::
1 Comments:
The lack of infrastructure is inherent in most of Africa. The challenge remains the availability of information and the distribution of that information. What seems to excite many about Africa is the vastness of land. But that vastness remains unproductive if the custodians are lacking in information, the biggest requirement is to develop local knowledge agents
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