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In 2012, microbiologist Gemma Reguera (right) at the Michigan
State University announced a new biofuel production process that uses bacteria
to eat agricultural wastes like bagasse and excrete biofuel and
hydrogen.
PHOTO: http://msutoday.msu.edu
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THE Free State’s grain farmers are in the same boat as sugar
farmers in KZN and Mpumalanga, anxiously awaiting news of how much biofuel
government will require refineries to mix into diesel and petrol by 2015.
Construction at South Africa’s most modern biofuel plant at
Bothaville in the Free State could start in June 2014 if the government
confirms the concept policy that all fuel must contain at least two percent
bio-ethanol.
Acting chief executive officer of Mabele Fuel Philip Bouwer told
grain farmers at a congress at Nampopark near Bothaville they expected
government would announce at least a two percent ratio for the bio:traditional
fuel mix.
This after Energy Minister Ben Martins announced that from October
1, 2015, fuel producers would have to blend into their petrol and diesel biofuel
that had been distilled from “under utilised” crops, such as sugar cane, sugar
beet, canola and sunflower.
Energy’s chief director for clean energy Mokgadi Modise told
Parliament that these crops exclude maize.
An implementation committee is already working on resolving the
operational aspects of blending biofuels with mineral petrol and diesel, and the
committee plans to present a biofuels pricing framework before year end.
Witness
Wheels reported in October that Illovu and Tongaat Hullet are keen to
recycle their bagasse into fuel, rather than burning most of the crushed cane as
is currently the case.
But earlier this year, director of industrial affairs at the South
African Cane Growers’ Association, Thomas Funke. said the sugar cane industry
would require at least a 10% biofuel mix to make it viable to convert the mills
into plants that produce sugar and ethanol.
Bouwer told the maize farmers the R1,7 billion Mabele Fuel was
licensed to make biofuel from sorghum, but the project was not being funded
through the Industry Development Corporation, but by the South African banks and
other private institutions.
It will take 24 months to complete the sorghum to fuel plant, which
can turn any type of sorghum into ethanol, although the the producers prefer
grain with a high tannin content.
Bouwer said the plan will require 400 000 tons of sorghum, of which
a quarter will be delivered by emerging farmers, to supply the expected
bio:traditional fuel ratio of two percent.
Another proposal at the conference, which might also affect sugar
cane farmers, is that the grain farmers want the price of sorghum to be
determined by the annual production costs, and not be pegged at Safex
prices.
