SA: Fuel for thought

South Africa is another step closer to a biofuels industry with the cabinet’s approval of a draft biofuels industry strategy earlier this month. In May next year, the cabinet will finalise that strategy to hopefully put the fuel component of the country’s energy economy on the road to a greener, cheaper and sustainable alternative.

For fuel consumers, “greener, cheaper and sustainable” are the elements of a viability test. If biofuels present just one element, they have to be worth supporting; if it presents all of the above, what are we waiting for?
For one thing, we have to wait for government to develop a policy based on the cabinet-approved strategy. This is so mainly because a market needs to be developed and because government wants to see agricultural policies reconciled with energy, environmental, trade and economic policies.

Government’s view is that SA has the potential to produce enough biofuel to contribute up to 75% of its renewable energy by 2013, without affecting food security or requiring excessive government support. The feedstock will be supplied from the country’s excess crop production and by expanding production on underused arable land, particularly that of emerging farmers. Government calculates that the biofuels industry has the potential to create 55000 jobs in farming alone, all for a R6bn investment to come from the public and private sectors.

If it seems too good to be true, the position bears closer scrutiny. It is not at all clear that the social, economic and environmental benefits of a biofuels industry are incontrovertible.

Business Day