Kenya makes key step to tap into biofuels market

Efforts to turn Kenya into Africa’s principal producer of biofuels made significant steps last week with the completion of a draft policy for cost-effective and safe production and commercialisation.

Aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, the proposed policy hopes to establish the principles that will enable Kenya to gain from rising demand for clean energy without social and economic shockwaves.

Fossil fuels — currently accounting for nearly a half of global energy consumption — is the major contributor to the deadly greenhouse gas emissions that have been linked to climate change.

Biofuel has been touted as the panacea to the world’s perennial energy crisis, a silver bullet that would quench the growing global demand for oil with limited negative impact on the environment

The proposed policy was the subject of discussions in a conference in Nakuru, which was attended by officials from the Ministry of Energy, researchers and environmentalists.

The draft is to be submitted to the Ministry for approval and tabled in Parliament for adoption.

Phanuel Oballa, a researcher with the Kenya Forest Research Institute, says the major drawbacks of fossil fuels lie in the fact that it is not renewable, is prone to price fluctuations in the international market, and not only threatens national energy security but also impacts on the general standard of living by eating deeper into household budgets.

“Kenya is spending a lot of money on fossil fuel imports that could be significantly reduced with the development of sufficient renewable energy sources,” said Mr Oballa.

Many NGOs have introduced oil plants like jatropha to farmers, saying it could be a major export product with the possibility of spinning the wheel of industrialisation in Kenya faster.

Kenya is eyeing the middle income economy status in 20 years time guided by the blueprint Vision 2030, which is now the principal reference document for the government and its agencies.

Sue Canney, project manager of the Deutsche Investitions (DEG) Jatropha Support Research Programme reckons that Kenya is paying a heavy price for the high pricing of electricity and cooking gas that forces more than 80 percent of rural households to rely on wood fuel for their energy needs.

“It is estimated that a small family of four people needs to cut down more than 100 trees a year to meet its energy needs,” said Ms Canney.

Bernard Muok of the African Centre for Technology Studies — a research institution that is fronting for the use of bio-fuels says Kenya could significantly reduce the number of people visiting its rural dispensaries and health centres by eliminating indoor pollution that is mainly caused by use of wood fuels.

Besides, Mr Muok argues, bio-fuels have the potential of boosting economic growth in the countryside through jobs creation and skills development.

Production of biofuels also needs large amounts of feedstocks that create demand for agro-forestry products that have the capacity to spread its benefits.

Ms Canney says the use of bio-fuels could help in engineering even deeper social change as people reap the benefits of having a regular and renewable supply of energy that is closer to their homes.

Kenya largely depends on a centralised power generation and distribution system that serves less than 10 per cent of households and is mainly concentrated in towns.

Localised biofuel production could compliment this centralised system and boost the country’s ranking in terms of access to clean fuels by helping families to produce energy that fits their needs, say experts.

Critics warn

Kenya has mainly relied on two sources of bio-fuels technology — bioethanol that mainly uses the by-products of sugar processing such as molasses as its main feedstock and biodiesel that comes from oil seed bearing trees such as jatropha curcas, croton megalocarpus, and cape chestnut.

But critics of the biofuel craze have warned that it also poses the danger of sparking natural resource based conflict over scarce water and land as well as cause loss of diversity.

Such risks, say advocates, could be better managed with the establishment of a national policy on biofuels production that is realistic to the various localities in terms of the population, access to water and topography.

It is unfortunate, says Mr Muok, that Kenya’s move towards a biofuels energy-driven economy has been characterised by a lack of direction whose impact has been the failure to create a market.

Having a policy will not only ensure strong social and environmental safeguards but also protect peoples’ investments at the community level, says Ms Canney.

Left without information relating to the suitability of areas, conditions and management practices, enthusiasm for biofuels among many farmers who experimented with the new crops such as Jatropha is waning.

A biofuels policy should also provide for research and development in the sector for informed and optimal production.

A national committee set up to work on the policy says it has a draft that has been written with the input of local players backed by case studies from Brazil , the United States of America Asia, and India.

“We hope to have a policy in place not far in the future,” a committee member said.