Researchers evaluate the potential of bioenergy production in Africa

A group of researchers from Brazil, the United States and the Netherlands, as well as representatives of institutions aimed at the socio-economic development of the African continent, will meet, between 1st and 5th of April in South Africa and Mozambique to discuss the potential for production of ethanol from sugar cane in these two African nations. The meeting will take place during the event Bioenergy in Africa Workshop.

The meeting is part of the activities of the themed project "Bioenergy Contribution of Latin America, Caribbean and Africa to the GSB project t-Lacaf-Cane-I", developed by researchers at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in the framework of the BIOEN, Fapesp Bioenergy Research Program lead by the Fundação Amparo à Pesquisa of the State of São Paulo.

The project is collaboration. On the Brazilian side, researchers from the College of Agriculture Luiz de Queiroz (Esalq), with the Nuclear Energy Center of Agriculture (Cena) of the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CTBE), The Center of Sugarcane Technology (CTC), The Brazilian Reference Center on Biomass and the consulting company Agroicone.

Also part of the project, are researchers from Dartmouth College, Penn State University, the University of Minnesota and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who are all from the United States. As well as Imperial College of London from United Kingdom, Stellenbosch University from South Africa and the Mozambique Technical University.

Born at the beginning of 2013, the "Bioenergy Contribution of Latin America, Caribbean and Africa to the GSB project t-Lacaf-Cane-I" has the purpose of analyzing the possibilities for production of ethanol from sugarcane in Colombia, Guatemala, Mozambique and South Africa.

The initiative represents a Brazilian contribution to the project Global Sustainable Bioenergy (GSB) initiated in 2009 by a group of scientists, engineers, government agencies and representatives of the industrial sector, with the goal of encouraging the sustainable development of bio-combustible and examining the possibility of replacing 25% of the energy used today on the planet by bioenergy.

"In meetings in South Africa and Mozambique, we will discuss issues related to a study which began to determine the potential for ethanol production from sugarcane specifically in those two countries, "said Luis Augusto Barbosa Cortez, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering (Feagri) and researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning (NIPE) of Unicamp, from the Agency Fapesp.

According to Cortez, during the study, a diagnosis of biomass production will be carried out in South Africa and Mozambique analyzing the energy situation of the two African countries, detailing the constraints in terms of land use for the production of bioenergy.

The production model of ethanol from the sugar cane which could be adopted by the two countries – whether on a small or large scale, for example, "The study is at a preliminary stage. We are at the stage of gathering information and training the teams of researchers to move forward in the diagnosis of the problems, "said Cortez, who is a member of the member of the executive board of the GSB and Deputy Coordinator of special programs of Fapesp.

Potential of production

According to Cortez, the bioenergy production in South Africa and Mozambique is still very small. South Africa, however, is already the largest producer of sugar cane from the African continent, aimed mostly for the production of sugar and with a volume equivalent to that produced by the Northeast of Brazil (approximately 20 million tons per year).
Mozambique, in turn, currently produces 3.6 million tons of sugar cane in a planted area of 47.4 million hectares, and has great potential to expand the cultivation for the ethanol production. The problem, however, is that, in the case of South Africa, the country does not have an energy deficiency, since it exports energy, coming from coal, which is its biggest energy matrix. "The production of ethanol from sugar cane in South Africa should be made rather as a sub product of sugar, estimated Cortez.

Mozambique already has an energy situation less favourable than South Africa and depends on imported energy. The country, however, still needs to resolve land and agricultural zoning issues that have impacts on the expansion production of sugar cane, said Cortez.
"The production of sugar cane does not depend only on physical and climatic conditions of the country, but also of a good political and institutional environment" evaluated Cortez. "We are analyzing these questions in the study," he said.

In the assessment of the researcher, the two countries share a fundamental key for the production of biofuels: to have a large availability of fertile soil and favorable climatic conditions.

"Producing bio-combustibles is also an activity for countries that have a lot of land mass," he said. "For those with a limited availability of land, the ideal is to dedicate themselves to the production of agricultural products that are not commodities, as sugar cane is".

According to International estimates, the world has today about 440 million hectares of land for agricultural use still available, of which approximately 60% are located in Latin America – being 150 million hectares in Brazil. The remaining 40% are in Africa.

"In other regions there are not many areas available to increase the agricultural frontier. The remaining available land is desert or mountainous area ", said Cortez.