South Africa: Ethanol – Boon Or Bust?

“Africans have the potential to become the Arabs of the biofuel industry,” said Johan Hoffman, chief executive of Ethanol Africa, the company that plans to build eight biofuel factories across South Africa.

“There is a potential to use vast areas of this massive continent for biofuel production, and all that is needed is water and an electricity supply,” Hoffman said. “Africa has the potential to provide energy for the world – who is going to supply the growing economies of China and India? We already know there is a finite amount of oil left in the earth, and it is being used in enormous quantities and will soon be gone.”
A renewable energy that will create jobs, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, help the environment and uplift the poor – is there anything ethanol can’t do?

A lot, say its detractors. “I wish they would stop building these ethanol factories,” said the University of Cape Town’s Dr Harro Von Blottnitz, a chemical engineer who has spent years studying biofuels in African contexts.

“It is well documented – it takes energy to make energy, and the amount of energy it takes to grow and harvest these crops barely produces a surplus return,” he said. “While bioethanol production makes some sense with high oil prices, I don’t think our government has wrapped its mind around all the consequences, and studies that should be done, haven’t been done.”

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