Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Enabling sustainable biopower, biogas & biofuels development in West Africa Accra, Ghana: 27—29, October 2009 PANGEA Workshop: Links with the North Accra, Ghana: 26 October 2009

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. INTRODUCTION Background The first Bioenergy Markets West Africa conference was held 27-29 October 2009 at La Palm Royal Hotel in Accra, Ghana. As one of the leaders in Africa’s push to include bioenergy options in its overall energy mix, Ghana has made strident efforts to be the West African regions leader in biofuel production—especially in jatropha. Yet it’s not just Ghana. From Mali to Nigeria, West Africa is adapting bioenergy technologies and processes to fit their needs while finding new ways to increase private sector and government involvement in the growing industry. In conjunction with the conference, on the pre-conference day 26 October, PANGEA held a workshop entitled “Links with the North” that gathered together perspectives and practitioners from developed countries to discuss the how they’re working to strengthen biofuel industries in Africa as a whole and West Africa in particular. This report summarises the proceedings and discussions held at the conference, which was co-sponsored by the Technical centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) attracting over 150 industry executives from 28 countries. The Key Objective of the Conference The aim of the conference was the creation of strategies for the development of biofuels business opportunities in Africa and understanding the key issues affecting sustainable biofuels development across the continent. The conference also provided a premier opportunity to meet, network and fully update all the key trends ranging from policy decisions to the implementation of profitable, sustainable biofuels projects and aim to provide a solid base for informed decisions and developing future biofuels projects across Africa. Agenda and Invitees More than 30 speakers from across West Africa, Europe, Brazil and North America presented topics spanning a wide range of disciplines from biogas to jatropha, from sugarcane to ethanol stoves. For the more than 100 executives, researchers and investors who attended the event, the conference and associated workshop offered the opportunity to reach out and create new partnerships for further expansion of bioenergy in the region. This was demonstrated by the creation of the Africa Bioenergy Association, a participant-driven motion to use the conference as a jumping point for further regional cooperation, not just in West Africa but across the continent as a whole.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Key Messages from the Conference Ghana has made great strides in developing policy-driven demand for biofuels, yet obstacles remain in the way including lack of policy implementation, expensive biodiesel production processes that keep the fuel twice as expensive as fossil diesel and lack of awareness in some areas. Nevertheless, the new government is determined to become a regional leader in the production and use of bioenergy. Elsewhere in West Africa, countries are wholeheartedly engage in biofuel production. From jatropha biodiesel produced in rural coops in Mali and then blended at the pump in Bamako to sugarcane and sweet sorghum ethanol in Nigeria, biofuels remain an exciting proposition for the region. One of the biggest challenges, however, remains a lack of access to project finance. Most agricultural banks are not well informed about biofuels, and their long pre-finance needs, compared to traditional agriculture. Commercial non-agriculture banks shy away from biofuels because of lack of agricultural understanding. Development banks should be leading the way in this space but have failed to do so so far. For smaller producers and rural co-ops who have perhaps the most to benefit from biofuels, thanks to increased access of decentralised and affordable energy to diversify income and economic activities, it is difficult for them to attain financing as well. Some groups are lucky because they can participate in a donor-funded and led project but the millions who do not have that opportunity are sorely missing out. Jatropha was once seen as a major opportunity in the region and many groups—small and large, profit and non-profit—began experimenting with jatropha. Yet few were able to succeed due to the long pre-production period, lack of cultivation knowledge and expensive seeds due to demand for plantation development. Though there is still some hope for select jatropha production models in West Africa, there are other crops and wastes that can and do provide better results with less investment and greater access for rural areas than jatropha. Much of the focus in southern Africa has been on biofuel production for export to Europe. Though some West African projects are developed with that market in mind, many of the projects are for local use to help expand regional energy access and diversify economies. There are success stories in West Africa for nearly every size of project and every kind of project, from biogas to ethanol cookstoves to jatropha biodiesel blended at the pump.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. DAY 1 KEYNOTE SESSION Chair’s Opening Remarks Dr. Rainer Janssen, WIP Renewable Energies, Project Coordinator, COMPETE, Germany Keynote Address – Encouraging Bioenergy Markets in the ECOWAS Region

Prof. Abeeku Brew-Hammond Ag, Director, The Energy Center, KNUST -

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana Prof. Brew-Hammond Ag explored in depth the various opportunities bioenergy have in Ghana and what steps the country has taken to become a leader in the region for implementation both technically and policy-wise for the further investment in the industry. As an example, Prof. Brew-Hammond Ag said biogas is a major opportunity in Ghana with many entrepreneurs already going international as the need increases for collaboration to create first class service provision. In Ghana, awareness of liquid biofuels began in 2003 with the first announcement of jatropha biodiesel, which was quickly followed by the government’s first report on biofuels in September 2003. Four government committees were established among the energy commission and included food and agriculture. In 2005, the first policy document for biofuels included B20 for all government vehicles and a group of experts was to be established within the energy commission. But this didn’t come about. The policy remained a draft until 2006 when the new minister commanded a revised document be submitted within three months. That document established blending mandates for 5% by 2010 and 10% by 2015 for both ethanol and biodiesel, but nothing has happened. Biofuels were in the strategic national energy plan since 2006 but Ghana has serious work to catch up on. The newly elected government has a renewed commitment to achieve these targets. President John Atto Mills’ focus on biofuels is to create new jobs. The draft renewable energy law includes a feed-in tariff and renewable energy purchase obligations with provisions for control of feedstock production and sustainability criteria. The policy is already at cabinet level and is expected to parliament by end of the year. ‘Watch this space,’ said Prof. Brew-Hammond Ag. Ghana is the most electrified country in the West African region. The country developed a long-term 30-year program, and 20 years in, they want to reach universal access in the next 10 years. As an aside, he said Ghana hosts the ECOWAS electricity regulatory agency. Ghana’s national plan is to go through stakeholder consultation shortly after going to parliament and the Professor wants make sure the COMPETE sustainability platform is included in the national programme. He says he salutes companies like Biofuel Africa who share his vision of sustainability for biofuels,

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. like policies including additionally food crops through their “Food First” policy, which is something he wants to see more biofuel companies adopt in the country and region. As board chairman of the Energy Commission, the Professor wants to see an ombudsman established for claims and counterclaims against the biofuel industry so that issues are handled before they get out of control and unnecessarily tarnish biofuels in the public eye. Regionally, ECOWAS established a renewable energy center in Cape Verde to develop bioenergy programmes that will cut across all the countries. Ghana was an active player as part of the white paper that all the ECOWAS governments signed that set targets for energy access for the region. KNUST, as an institution of higher education, is involved deeply in all aspects of biofuel production including agronomy, transesterification of palm kernels to jatropha growing. Through the Biogas for Life initiative, there are seven institutes of higher education that have linked together and he hopes to see further use. He noted that the feed-in tariffs are not public yet as the policy is still in the cabinet but the policy will set the framework to set the tariffs. In closing, the Professor says he yearns for the day when every community in his district has clean bio-sanitation facilities, where every Ghanaian has access to sustainable bioenergy for cooking, transport and industry. Ghana aspires to be #1 in the region for sustainable production and use in bioenergy, and as such is looking for GDP growth rates of 10% and above. CTA Welcome Address

Dr. Joel Sam, Representative, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural

Cooperation (CTA), Ghana On behalf of Dr Hansjörg Neun, the Director of the EU-ACP Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Dr. Sam welcomed all the guests to the conference and gave a special welcome to the delegates sponsored by CTA. It was his hope that those delegates would make an extra effort to make useful contributions to the event. Dr. Sam explained the role of CTA as a joint EU-ACP initiative to improve access to information, research, training and innovations in agriculture and rural development for ACP states through information development and provision as well as capacity building. CTA places strong emphasis on facilitating the exchange of information and experiences both among ACP countries as well as between ACP and EU countries using a variety of approaches such as meetings and the production of publications and audio-visual materials. One of the most effective ways of

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. facilitating the exchange of information and experiences is through the support of conferences such as this where participants can have the opportunity to interact in a face-to-face manner. If implemented in a sustainable manner and guided by strong policies, bioenergy production also offers an unprecedented opportunity for the vast rural populations of the South to get out of poverty, increase incomes and food security, and finally get access to modern energy. CTA has accorded bioenergy and biofuels a high priority in its current strategic plan for the period 2007-2010. Under this plan, CTA intends to provide information and advice aimed at helping ACP countries develop and implement strategies to enable them to produce and efficiently utilize bioenergies/biofuels. Sustainable Bioenergy Development in West Africa

Clifford Spencer, Consultant, UN Foundation, UK Cliff Spencer presented the findings of the UEMOA report on biofuel options undertaken by the UN Foundation in 2008. The study was produced by the Hub for Rural Development in Western and Central Africa as well as experts in the region. He made it very clear that the report is not a report by the European Union writing a report about African crops and African region, but a report by Africans for Africans. The study is an open book at what should and should not be done with biofuels in the UEMOA region, looking at the opportunities and the challenges of sustainable bioenergy. But he said the most important of all is the link between renewable energy and agriculture. Each country produced its own report by its own country experts. What they found was there is a lack of reliable, quality and timely data, showing a need straightaway for facts. In order to complete the study, they used secondary data to fill in the gaps but that can not be a solution for the future. In the UEMOA region, 80-90% of the population is involved in agriculture, so obviously the sector is extremely important, not just for the food needs of the countries but also as major exports for the countries. There is plenty of rainwater in the region but little is done for conservation or decentralised irrigation. Together, with modern agriculture techniques, the region can change poor soil quality. Large organisations, governments and major donors have retreated from agriculture. This was made most notable by the huge food crisis. As it turned out, bioenergy wasn’t the cause but it was a major cause of reduction in interest in investment that has continued beyond the crisis.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. If agriculture isn’t doing very well, all of development is being held back. There’s a parallel between electricity and development but the region has less than 4% electricity access, showing how all three areas are interlinked. Agriculture needs energy for all stages. If agriculture can produce its own energy, that’s a huge step in the right direction. If can be changed to use modern techniques without high levels of fertilizers with rotational crops to restore soils, and that would make a huge difference. Carbon 4 plants can be grown in the region, and C4 plants are the most efficient solar panels in the world. All of these crops can be produced in these countries and all of them can be produced efficiently as well. Crops like sweet sorghum would be super efficient in this region, so if bioenergy can be used as a trigger to modernize and diversify agriculture as well as increase energy security, he asked if we dare hope that there can be also an improvement in land quality. He reiterated how very important it is that policy is put in place and that governments have a very clear indicator that they understand the reasons why. Africa can produce all the power as a continent for the rest of the world, technically. But there is scare water, poor capacity, and erratic crop yields that could get in the way. He concluded by saying that a dam can put out 4-5MW is good but with crops one can get a megawatt per 1,000ha, so there is lots of power potential from bioenergy. Keynote Panel Discussion – What Stage are Bioenergy Policies at in the

Region & What Needs to be Done?

Wisdom Ahiataku-Togobo, Director, Renewables, Ministry of Energy,

Republic of Ghana Biomass accounts for a significant amount of energy utilized in Ghana, mainly in the household and industrial sectors, playing a key role in energy consumption. Well over 200,000 improved stoves have been distributed around the country as part of the government’s work to increase access to better forms of energy and they have even looked into improved charcoal and briquetting production. Co-generation at saw mills and from palm residues has happened in the past but it tends to shut down as the grid approaches because the grid electricity is cheaper. Ghana needs to have policies in place to encourage co-generation to stay in business. A significant amount of biomass is used for cooking fuels which is bad for deforestation, health and other environmental implications. Modern bioenergy tends to be more expensive than traditional bioenergy and so far there have been no incentives or price supplements for transition to better fuels.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. The Ministry of Energy is trying to support the promotion of modern biofuels by reducing the dependence on tradition biomass and through promoting regeneration of woody biomass. In Ghana, the average price of vegetable oils is high, and if you want to transform it into biodiesel, there are also some additional costs, which then makes it uncompetitive with ex-pump prices for diesel. That is why Ghana is targeting biodiesel production for exports rather than for the local market. Most rural poor go to arid and degraded lands to find old, dead wood for firewood and wouldn’t go into the forest to get firewood just as their cultural practice, so if investors are looking to use degraded lands for biofuel production then they have to find a way to go about it without disrupting wood collection or cattle grazing. Biofuel exports should be focused on plants that can increase the income of the ordinary farmer, so investors need to look at sugarcane or other plants with multiple commercial value, like palm oil or groundnuts. Single use plants like jatropha could be used to regenerate degraded land in post-mining areas, etc. If you can produce jatropha at competitive prices then it would be a major relief especially when Ghana is struggling to get oil into the country. Supply for local consumption should be the priority. When it comes to conflict with food and fuel, if for instance you are producing an energy crop that is used for fuel, there is a saturation point. You can’t eat all of the palm oil, etc. then the extra we can use for fuel. The machinery you bring in for production of biofuel is the same you bring in for producing food. Only 22% of arable land in Ghana used for agriculture which means there is plenty of opportunity to exploit land for both food and fuel investments. If Ghana wants to replace national consumption of diesel, it would take less than 10% of Ghana’s land. If biofuel is produced in a mechanised way, it is possible for the end costs to be much lower. In producing biofuels, one of Ghana’s benchmarks is to look at how competitive biofuels are with fossil fuel prices. If biofuel is produced at a cheaper cost, why would a poor farmer wait for an expensive fuel if can get the same quality from plant origin? In the draft law, the plan is to put in some sort of incentives for production and use of fuel locally but that can only be if they are produced cheaply. In closing, Ahiataku-Togobo said the first goal of Ghana for bioenergy is targeting energy access for the poor. For a lot of the investors in order to pay back their investment they have their focus mostly for the export market to meet the demand in industrialized countries. R&D in the sector has been quite inadequate. In trying to address some of this, the renewable energy law currently before cabinet is looking at the possibility of creating a renewable energy fund to support research as well as incentives for production.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Policy Analysis in West Africa

Dr. Rainer Janssen, WIP Renewable Energies, Project Coordinator

COMPETE, Germany Bioenergy is now introduced at large scales in many African countries where exports and local use of bioenergy has the potential to mitigate poverty and to contribute to economic development. Yet bioenergy production can cause negative social and environmental impacts, so in order to avoid this, sustainable bioenergy production has to be ensured. There is no need for bioenergy development in Africa to lead to hunger. Every failed initiative will lead to the opposite idea of this so all governments and investors need to focus on the sustainability aspect of bioenergy. The revitalization of the agricultural sector in Africa is desperately needed. It is the lack of infrastructure, support and investment in agriculture that has led to hunger, not bioenergy. As part of the COMPETE conference in November 2008 in Mali, the minister for energy opened the rural training centre whose purpose was to do local capacity building in agriculture and bioenergy jointly. These are the kinds of initiatives that are needed on the ground to further work in the rural areas. Quite a few countries have already developed national agencies, which is important to ensure regional integration as was discussed in the UEMOA study. The exclusion of different sectors in policy making can lead to unstable policies as they change to support one sector or another rather than working as a whole. Stable markets for energy could be introduced through supports that include financial incentives, a blending mandate to create stable demand, etc. These are needed in order to ensure confidence in investors and consumers alike. Bioenergy takes a hard look at land use planning. Land use planning has two aspects, who owns the land or how can farmers benefit from changed land use, and how on a national basis a country can make sure there is plenty of land for food production. Infrastructure must go along with investment in agricultural sector to make sure locals can benefit. In Ghana, the government put forward its draft renewable energy bill in September 2009 to promote primarily renewable sources of electricity. The country’s vision includes energy security, improving access to electricity, attraction of investment, capacity building and awareness creation. The development of the feed-in tariff scheme will define rates guaranteed for 20 years while creating a purchase obligation for electricity utilities. In Benin, the driver for that country’s renewable energy policies was to reduce poverty and encourage economic growth. A study co-funded for Benin by the World Bank showed 8.3 million ha available for bioenergy, but infrastructure is still not in place for the irrigation availability. The National Commission for the

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Promotion of Biofuels includes members from different ministries and have created three sub-committees to ensure smooth policy creation and implementation. Because of Benin’s focus on reducing poverty, the export of biomass feedstock has been forbidden, ensuring the country focuses on value-added products for both local use and export. Priority for biofuel feedstock production has been given to rural families through the contract farming model. In May 2009, Mali created the National Agency for Biofuels Development (ANADEB) with the objective to establish and regulate an industrial biofuels market. ANADEB’s responsibilities include • Establishment of biofuel standards • Ensure market availability of biofuels • Establishment of biofuel pricing structures • Coordination of national and international partners The country has been researching jatropha since 1986 and has had a national jatropha programme under the Ministry of Energy since 2004. In 2007 it set up a goal to have 321,000ha under jatropha but to date only about 20,000 hectares have been planted. Eventually it wants more than a billion jatropha trees planted with annual production of at least a billion litres of jatropha oil. The national programme in Senegal needs better coherence in structure and between the different ministries. The strong push by the government supports the programme if the goals are more coherent. Mozambique most advanced in field of biofuels with several institutions. The land zoning initiative might be one of the pathways to ensure sufficient food production. In Nigeria, the biofuel programme is through a supply-led approach from Brazil for ethanol. The target is for sugarcane and cassava-based ethanol with roughly 400,000ha identified as appropriate. Janssen concluded by saying that steps of advancement are different in different African countries but they see the value and need for the policy framework. Is Greening the Desert Practical?

Ruud van Eck, Director, Diligent Energy Systems, The Netherlands Diligent is active in very dry areas in Tanzania, but is it the right place to do it? The company started in 2004 but just moved its factory and offices a few weeks ago because the original one is too small. There was need for more storage for the seeds and more space for the machines. The training centre is used to give trainings to the farmers. Diligent works only with outgrowers and doesn’t have

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. its own plantations. Instead, they have the logistics in place to collect seeds. Rather than cutting down trees at the coast and the long replacement time for the carbon that was stored in former trees to be made up with the new jatropha trees, he is working instead in dry areas where farmers don’t have access to other kinds of markets. Farmers go to the collectors, the collectors take the seeds and bring them to the processing centre. Diligent rents godowns all over Tanzania to store the seeds. Van Eck says they don’t want all the seeds at the same place near the processing centre because if there’s a fire, they’ve lost the whole crop. At the beginning they had a lot of problems with the expelling but have since learned the ins and outs of the process. Farmers were jaded from NGOs and other companies promoting one crop or another so it is hard to convince them to start doing jatropha. Farmers wanted to see guarantees. Diligent’s own, first jatropha plant on Mt. Kilimanjaro hasn’t grown in five years because it is too high elevation, and has never produced seeds. When talking to farmers, he suggests they start growing hedges of jatropha. If farmers plant them close together, they’re good to keep animals out. It’s not important the yield of a single tree but how much yield is achieved overall. It doesn’t take too much land and you can get your production of jatropha seeds. Even when it’s too dry, the jatropha won’t produce but it won’t die. In 2006 started doing first expelling of the jatropha seeds. Now have 50 people working in Tanzania, controlling the paperwork and doing the processing for the seed production of 5,000 farmers. One way to success was to keep expenditures under control. It was also important to have good communication skills because they need to work with everyone, from the government to the NGOs who all have different perspectives. As soon as Diligent began producing oil, among their first customers were small safari companies driving on jatropha. Now larger safari companies with 40-50 vehicles are using the oil in blocks of 1,000 litres. It is difficult to find investors because of sustainability issues, because development aspects for Africa were unsure, in addition to having just a small factory and no land it made it difficult. If one can find them, how does he value the company? Using discount cash flow method is the only way to find the value of the company, which they are currently discounting at 28% without inflation correction. If they were setting up the same business in Holland, would say discounting should be about 15%-20%. But it all comes down to management. Good management is easier if you have small scale farming than large scale plantations. Diligent’s farmers have 3,500ha planted now, expect 10,000ha by the end of 2010, perhaps 2011, and could already be producing 4,000 litres of oil a day but don’t because they don’t have enough seeds. There’s no need yet to grow the factory, but need to build more storage for the seeds and improve the quality of the oil.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. When Diligent started doing promotion among farmers, they gave seeds for free to the farmers in exchange for an offtake contract, followed up by training on the best way to raise. Instead of waiting months like coffee farmers do to get paid, the company gives the seed collectors enough cash to pay for the seed, then pay the collector the difference for what he paid the farmers. It’s a strain on the working capital, but buying the seeds isn’t the most expensive part. It’s difficult to set up a microfinance scheme for the farmers because it’s too long of a period before the trees start producing, though one could set up a microfinance programme for the collectors but that may be complicated. About 50% of the energy from jatropha seeds is in the seedcake. Making biogas for cooking is the best way to use it, so with about 60 cubic meters is enough to cook for 300 people every day. Diligent’s biogas facility is connected straight to a kitchen. If one takes the presscake directly to the fields, there’s too much phosphorous in it so it is better to take the slurry from the biogas process to the fields. In Tanzania, there is no market for cake as fertiliser. With the rest that is not used for biogas, Diligent makes briquettes to sell to industry, but it can’t compete with illegally cut down wood. They are also producing sustainable charcoal from the presscake, setting up a small installation by end of this year and a large one by the end of next year. The market in Arusha is large enough for their supply. Eventually Diligent would like to see jatropha oil compete with fossil fuels in Tanzania. If they can sell the jatropha oil at the same price as fossil fuels, then the price should go down after a few years. Rather than using transesterification to become biodiesel, they promote the use of straight vegetable oil (SVO). Engines in cars can be modified for roughly €1000 to run on SVO rather than diesel. So as not to disappoint, Diligent tells its farmers to expect a minimum of 1 tonne of seeds per hectare and then hope for more, while they tell investors they expect to harvest from 80% of farmers. The theory is that 20% will go elsewhere but at the moment Diligent is processing 110% to 120% of their estimates because it’s not easy for farmers to come up with their own pressing, collection and logistics. As much as Diligent would like to sell the oil locally, there is not much of a market right now so they are selling to niche markets in Europe like to CHP in Rotterdam or to Boeing for the Air New Zealand trial. Selling to the local market will give a better price than having to pay transport cost for export customers. Distribution for oil is not yet in place, which is why the large safari companies are interesting, as are the energy generators. The first oil expeller was produced in Tanzania but the big one is Indian made while they also have some from Germany. Next they are going to test some Chinese expellers, but no matter the origin, there is usually modifications needed to be optimal for jatropha. For small farmers it’s interesting because it’s additional income, not primary income. If the prices have to compete with food, food will be more interesting for

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. farmers to produce than jatropha but where Diligent operates the soil is very poor, which then makes the jatropha is very interesting. Van Eck concluded by saying that according to the Lifecycle Analysis completed on their jatropha oil, Diligent’s jatropha energy balance is 85% if it is used in Holland for CHP. Biogas Production

Dr. John Afari Idan, Chief Executive Officer, Biogas Technologies West

Africa, Ghana Dr. Idan has a completely unique perspective on biogas. With biogas, there is no more need for waste. Biomass as raw material is population dependent-animal, crop and human. In terms of sources for human waste, they are plentiful, such as domestic households, public facilities like churches, mosques, public toilets, commercial offices, etc. If a country wants to develop its biofuel industry, it needs human manpower and that manpower must be healthy. KVIPs (Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit) only help to deplete the ozone because methane 21 times more dangerous than carbon emissions. If the KVIPs don’t have pipes, they can explode. Cesspools create maggots, which attract birds, and then people eat the birds. It’s a nasty cycle. When people go to African seas, they see brown seas because of the cess discharge. At the Tema aerobic treatment system, it consumes so much electricity that when the Okosombo damn broke down, so did the system. The people we want to buy the biofuel are going gradually extinct because they are dying from cholera. In hospitals it is the same, especially with the biomedical waste. Most waste is buried on the premises of the hospital, and at best it is incinerated. The distribution of communicable disease is very strong because cholera and dysentery live for so long so there is need to build a kind of bioreactor that can kill them. The people who visit the Kumasi landfill site had to cover their noses but what about the people who live in the vicinity? Dr. Idan says if we recycle, we can save the lands that won’t be needed for landfills. Dung can be used for electricity and fertiliser production. A sustainable integrated approach—integrate the sewage and other sources of organic matter, and in the process the people get proper sanitation practices. There is need to save the water with sanitation because this is the water we drink.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Dr. Idan presented several examples of existing biogas end-use applications in Ghana. A Central University’s Miotso campus of 14,500 students, the system collects the sewage (the digesters are underground, 100cubic meter) allowing the land to be used as a car park. The water used for washing, cooking etc. is recycled back into the system for the toilets so that all water is used twice. Campuses are using the gas from the biogas to cook for the students. Biogas needs a lot of air to combust, unlike LPG, so need to adjust the ball on typical gas stoves. In communities, it is possible to cluster various houses, instead of separate septic tanks for each house, and the waste goes to a single place for collecting the gas. The gas is then sent back to the houses for the cooking. Dr. Idan has developed biogas-operated refrigerators for hospitals by adjusting the mechanism in the older kerosene run models. He says that for us in Africa, this is more of a survival tool than just a technology. Most of the land in Accra is either clay or water-logged, so he is doing a lot of work for private homes. There is no biogas plant that costs the same as the next because there are always different variables. On average, the costs are between GH¢4,000 and GH¢5,000 per metre cubed. At the moment he is working with the government so they can begin subsidising biogas units for individual households. As a rule of thumb, one third of a meter cubed is gas. If there are four people in the house and you build 6m or 8m cubed, you need to think if you have waste from chickens, goats, or even a dog, because this could all be added. Dr. Idan says one of the biggest problems is that Africa doesn’t have a maintenance culture. So if you build something that is high maintenance, you fail from the word go. You must clean your stove, but apart from that the biogas system he builds is almost maintenance free. There is no more waste, there is only raw material, he concluded. Zero Waste Farming – A Solutions Based Approach

Dwight Rosslee, Manager, Biogas Power, South Africa Dwight Rosslee became involved in biogas originally through chicken farming in Nigeria. One thing they don’t have at the operation was power for the climate-controlled system. Biogas Power was already making biogas from chicken manure, so he liked the idea and bought the company. Rosslee says that if you treat waste as a resource, you can develop around that concept. Biogas is energy, the discharge is a liquid fertiliser, and the solids are a soil conditioner. The system is carbon credits. Agriculture is no longer a simple business and is very competitive and operators need a source of energy that is not linked with commodity prices. Africa is a

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. ‘generator society,’ which is very expensive. Zero waste is an old African concept, where in the villages and on the farms everything was used. But with industrialization and urbanization, it was lost. Africa needs to look at agriculture in a different way. Over time the lines will cross, but producing biogas will be a more expensive form of energy today than buying from the utility. One of the big problems is to find a solution in Africa that is cost effective. Biobag is a cheap way to get into the market because it can be used in small- and medium-sized applications. Lagoons are cheaper than building a big digester out of concrete, where the key is to use the total heat. The concept of gasification is not new but the engines of today have moved on quite a lot, so getting gasification to work requires getting a steady stream of waste in the right quantity. In the case study with the multinational dairy, they wanted to reduce their carbon footprint. The Greenways Farm case study Rosslee presented began as a little question of how to use chicken littler for fertiliser that became a way to make electricity from biogas using a biobag. Small rural applications are nice, cheap, easy ways to do biogas that still gets all the benefits. Biogas is lighter than air whereas LPG will sink. A combo stove, water purification unit, and mobile charger running on biogas still has enough electricity left to run a TV. There’s no use just making gas. You’ve got to come with a total solution, so then consumers will use it. The same rule applies for the big as the small. You need to train the people to use it. If you just put it down, it’s not going to work. Rosslee says they have shipped small digesters, thinking it’s very simple to install, but it ends up not working. Doesn’t matter what the scale is, he says he needs to make sure everyone understands how it works and the benefits of using the biogas systems. They can be using the gas but if they’re not using the slurry as fertiliser they’re missing half the value. Rosslee concluded by saying that in most cases he’s dealing with, the power is the byproduct. He says to take a look at what the project needs to achieve. MSW is all about limiting landfill space. Waste-to-energy is a bit of a misnomer because the energy comes at a premium. In areas where there’s no electricity or little access to energy, only then it becomes the prime product. Social Bioethanol

Eduardo Cauduro Mallman, Chief Executive Officer, USI, Brazil USI has a cooperation agreement with EMBRAPA, the Brazilian agricultural research agency, to further improve the technology behind micro-distilleries for sugarcane and sweet sorghum ethanol. Mallman’s micro-distillery works in a

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. continuous system, not a batch system like large distilleries, with starch and sucrose. Together with EMBRAPA they are starting work with exploring cellulosic ethanol production also on a micro scale. Micro-distilleries are popular because finally they can produce ethanol on a micro scale with the economies of scale like big companies, whereas in the past the micro- distilleries in Brazil failed due to old technologies that created poor economics. USI is working with the Gaia Foundation on introduction of the CleanCook stove throughout Brazil. The CleanCook stove uses hydrous ethanol, rather than ethanol gel, for a better and more efficient stove than others out on the market. The Gaia Foundation is working with UNDP and other partners to roll out the stove in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria in addition to Brazil. Harry Stokes of the Gaia Foundation demonstrated the stove, saying the interesting thing about it is that it can really cook a daily meal unlike the gel cook stoves that have been tried around Africa. This stove is not under pressure, therefore it cannot leak, explode or have accidents. It burns at 1.5kw, similar to LPG, at 65% efficiency, and is clean combustion. Only a tiny amount of carbon monoxide is produced, unlike the gel that can produce high amounts of carbon monoxide as it struggles to get hot enough. Gaia wants to have local entrepreneurs produce the stoves in Africa to lower the costs and to create jobs. It’s about delivering the ethanol to the flame so get high heat, efficiency of combustion, and operating safely, he said. Mallman says it is important to always have in mind the end use of the fuel, whether it is ethanol or biogas. USI has developed an electric generator for 10,000 kw using ethanol and biogas. He says that when we think about bioethanol and the using it in the generator, rather than just biodiesel as before, then the door is open. Ethanol is not just for biofuel in cars and trucks, but now in Brazil they’re developing with a company hydrous ethanol-fueled tractors that and new generators producing 300kw and 400 hp. Sweet sorghum can provide bagasse for animal feed or for co-generation, meaning that now is the opportunity to can talk about energy independence for the small holder because they can produce the raw material to industrialise and also use all the products-vinasse, bagasse and ethanol. These systems are built for specifically for poor communities with energy shortages but the ability to grow crops. ‘Green digital inclusion’ means that wherever exists a micro-distillery also means a generator for household lighting, TV and internet leading to a better world. When a community has animal feed, they have a source of protein. Can use cassava and the grain from sweet sorghum for ethanol, but for those need enzymes. With sweet sorghum stalks it is just simple sugars. USI’s micro-distilleries cost about US$80,000 for 400 litres/day, and US$150,000 for 1000 litre/day production. Considering that the stoves use about one litre of ethanol per day of cooking, a village can get its entire cooking energy needs served by a single micro-distillery.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Stokes concluded the presentation by saying over the years he has been so frustrated by the emphasis of biofuels into transport. He thinks that’s the wrong emphasis for Africa. Women die because of indoor air pollution, people struggle every day to get the fuel to cook a meal, so he wants ethanol to be produced directly for household use and stay out of the market chain for transport fuel and the commodity market. Poverty Alleviation with Biofuels

Koreissi Toure, Director, Mali Biocarburant, Mali There are companies in Bamako driving on biodiesel with no need for changing the engine. A litre of biodiesel in the car and it is working. The Royal Tropical Institute has been a main partner on the agronomy side of the project while everything concerning the technical part of this work was done with close collaboration of KIA motors. USAID has helped develop intercropping with maize. Mali Biocarburant’s project is located 60km from Bamako. Mali is a dry country with three months of rain and 1cm of rain the rest of the year which is why it’s important to valorize what that farmers have. From the beginning they have been working together with the local jatropha producers union in order to negotiate a fair sales price for the seeds. The pressing unit has been set up on a trailer so that it can press the oil right there with the farmers in order to give back the cake immediately for fertiliser use. The company organizes the jatropha farmers in a farmers school with a garden, a well and a pump. Two months before the rainy season, the nurseries are built. It is for one producer and he can plant this nursery with one thousand plants. With 1,000 plants per hectare, takes about 20% of the space leaving the rest for the farmer to produce food or whatever they choose. Every producer who gets this has to sow a minimum of 1ha of jatropha, which allows him a daily revenue of US$1-2. Between each tree is two metres and between every line is 5 meters. None of the farmers has a total monocropping as they’re all mixed cropping with maize thanks to the partnership with USAID, looking at improvements of maize varieties. Farmers also intercrop the jatropha with sweet sorghum and groundnuts. There’s a multitude of possibilities for the biodiesel, from a 5% blend nationwide to use exclusively in transport like taxis and buses, but until the policy comes nothing happens. The oil is clean, you can use it straight in the engine without transesterification but better to use biodiesel. The low end of yield is 25kg per person per day of harvesting, receiving about 50 cefas/kg for seed. Mali Biocarburant does not claim to grow jatropha that produces 3 tonnes of seeds per hectare. If they are going to harvest one kilo, then that is what we’re going to do. They try to optimize the concentration of trees and then get it into the mind of the farmers that jatropha is a supplement. The company has no

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. intention of producing jatropha on an intensive scale. Just plant the trees and allow them to grow to the level they can. The Lifecycle analysis completed shows GHG reduction of 72% as the biodiesel (not SVO/PPO). There are three bases of production and they are trying little by little to go towards the border with Cote d’Ivoire where there is more rainfall and less mortality of the trees. Of the 55 employees at Mali Biocarburant, 30 are full time agriculture extension agents who spend all of their time in the villages. All of the land for each farmer is collected and mapped using GPS by the extension agents. In October they created a company in Burkina, just for local production, not for export. The company is going to be just like the facility in Mali but a slightly different scale. Selling the glycerine byproduct of biodiesel is interesting so they are constructing another factory to make their own soap from the glycerine. The market for biodiesel is not just biodiesel. If you look at just the price of diesel or the price of biodiesel, it’s not going to make sense. In closing, Toure said Mali Biocarburant is making money from biodiesel but not just from biodiesel. It’s difficult to understand but the price of biodiesel is less than the price of diesel at the pump so it gets them to buy it. 45 cents cefa cheaper. DAY 2 Chair’s Remarks

Clifford Spencer, Head of Operations, C4 Group, UK There is clear consensus that bioenergy is a good thing for West Africa because it drives agriculture and because it drives public health in terms of biogas through waste processing. Now that we know it’s a good thing, how do we go about doing it, developing the right measures, and the right policies? What is the lifecycle assessment for these crops? What are the commercial opportunities for West Africa? What’s the current situation in terms of crop development and what are the critical issues facing these people in these arenas? It has become clear there is need for policy and regulation or these investments could be halted in their tracks. And for these policies, we need clear standards Facilitation of Sustainable Biofuels

Prof. Alfred Oteng-Yeboah The year 2008 happened to be a very important year in the history of mankind. The year witnessed the emergency of the three f’s, food, fuel and finance. It was the year the whole world came to its knees because of certain economic measures that had been taken. With biofuels, there area number of things to talk about. There are very many people who are for biofuels because of the problems

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. of fossil fuel prices last year but there are others who considering the effects of climate change believe biofuels may add more problems to what we are already witnessing. Human wellbeing is not just the food we take in but also the other ecological benefits such as clean water sources and clean air that people breathe, all of which are provided by ecosystem services. What are the guarantees for finance, that people will get involved so other people will have the benefits through the creation of markets? There are several things to consider when making policy. We need to look critically at our land use, look critically at the costs—social costs, environmental and other ecological costs— along with the environmental benefits. When there is a commodity that has not yet become a commodity, the government gets involved. In cocoa, the government gets involved with pricing. But for biofuel, I’m not sure the government is in full control to take into consideration what’s going on. For an economic activity, people have to make a profit. People will go into commodities where they can make a profit. It takes an entrepreneur to raise the profile to take something to the level where it can be recognised as an organic material. The knowledge that we have of organic material shows that all organic material can be used for biofuel. It takes you and me and anyone else who wants to produce biofuel to figure out how to derive the benefits, to figure out which source, and how to maintain the source so ensure that it will give you the profit. I don’t want to talk about incentives at the moment because they tend to cloud the real issues that are on the table. Let us consider that in Ghana every farmer decides he wants to turn his land into biofuel cultivation. Is there an incentive government will give that can lead to that? No, because it will lead to food security. It’s too early in the industry. Fueling Africa’s Food Security

Meghan Sapp, Secretary General, Partners for Euro-African Green Energy,

Belgium

Food security isn’t about food availability but about access to markets. According to the FAO, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. “We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,” says World Hunger Program’s executive director Josette Sheeran, “There is food on the shelves but people are priced out of the market.”

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Access to food depends on levels of poverty, purchasing power of households, prices, and existence of transport and market infrastructure of food distribution systems. The US produces 40% of the world’s maize, yet maize markets in Africa aren’t on the global maize market. Prices in urban centres in Africa can be high with little supply available yet bumper crops can exist, and rot, in the farming areas due to poor infrastructure and lack of market access for farmers to sell their produce. Trade barriers and subsidies also reduce access to food markets for developing countries. IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes (80s-90s), forced developing countries to drop tariffs, eliminate food marketing boards, and be victims of dumped food exports from the US, Europe (and Brazil), destroying local markets. WTO Agreement on Agriculture keeps away tariffs, duties, domestic and export subsidies, and other protection mechanisms yet the CAP and Farm Bill still exist. The oil price spike in 2007/08 were a result of many factors, such as bad cereal crops in Australia, Canada and elsewhere due to drought, underinvestment in agriculture for decades, increased demand for protein in Asia, and Latin America as well as increased demand for cereals in Africa. When oil prices went up, so did prices of fertiliser, tractor diesel and transportation. Yet when oil prices came down, the high prices for food commodities—which at the time were blamed on biofuels—also came down. The foodstuff whose price had increased the most was rice, which is not used anywhere as a feedstock for biofuel. Several countries are developing policies to ensure that biofuel production is produced sustainably with a positive impact on their social and natural environments. Mozambique is leading Africa in this regard. Other supranational policies like the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuel and the Renewable Energy Directive have all placed high priority on ensuring food security in areas where biofuels are produced. There are many opportunities to increase food and fuel production simultaneously, thereby increasing energy and food security while counteracting decades-long underinvestment in agriculture. Through crop-rotation and various forms of intercropping, crops can be grown for both food and fuel offering farmers diversified markets and opportunities to gain from production of co-products. Better agriculture production methods alone can make a big difference, allowing the extra production to remain available for energy production, rather than taking food supplies out of mouth in order to put into tanks. There needs to be more technology transfer in Africa on how to use wastes—human, animal and agriculture—in order to create energy sources while cleaning up the environment at the same time.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. In order to succeed with biofuels and use them as a tool for development, there needs to be a strengthening of regional markets for both food and fuel with increased access and Infrastructure. More investment in agricultural research and extension services to increase productivity/efficiency is needed to counteract the last few decades of neglect. Low-cost technologies using local resources for local needs need to be developed instead of just imported technologies for developed countries. In addition, governments need to take responsibility while also taking action to promote biofuels including blending mandates, feed-in tariffs for renewable sources and mini-grids for rural areas.

Food vs. Fuel: Analysis on Linkages

Kofi Marfo, Managing Director, Bio Diesel 1, Ghana As a farmer, Marfo says he has a more organic, on-the-ground perspective of the food vs. fuel debate. There has always been food scarcity yet only recently biofuels have become a common technology, so there’s little real reason to put much blame on biofuels for a problem that has always been. There is so much discussion on food vs. fuel, but little discussion about food vs. medicines, vs. cosmetics or vs. anything else that requires land? Food and fuel have a direct relationship, because for the processing of all food there is need for energy. Price relationships and sensitivities have to do with government policy and society’s access to income. There is the potential for positive impacts from biofuel production as increased energy availability assists with irrigation, drying, freezing, tractor and tractor mounted operations, transportation, and manure fertilization. Did God create the forests just for CO2 sequestration from human pollution? There are so many uses for the forests from food resources, medicinal, cultural, recreational and to other benign exploits for local use. If you owned forest and were poor, would you refuse a biofuel project brought to your doorstep? The central limiting factor to food consumption is few available financial resources in order to purchase food or to purchase the supplies to produce ones own food. Biofuel projects offer jobs which allow people to gain salaries, allowing them to access food markets. The forest itself being treasured, it also harbours a wealth of minerals. How are they unearthed? Through degradation that has not benefited the local population. Dams of all kinds have flooded and degraded the forest. Timber logging, bush fires, deliberate and natural, these all cause forest degradation but have nothing to do with biofuels. Of the estimated 50,000 square miles of oil palm plantations, how much was deliberately planted for biodiesel? With increasing human population and

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. related food needs, supposing oil palm is expanded for food needs, would it face same criticism? In conclusion, biofuels do not deserve the castigation as agents of forest degradation. Biofuels should grow from strength to strength as it provides jobs and a source of instant energy to remote and deprived areas to help drive economic activity. Dr. Essel Ben Hagen, Director, Institute for Industrial Research (CSIR),

Ghana

Mali Biofuels Policy Update: What Role Can Biofuels Play in the Energy Mix?

Hamata Ag Hautafaye, CEO, National Biofuel Development Agency

(ANADEB), Ministry of Energy, Mali Au Mali, la totalité des hydrocarbures que l’économie nationale consomme actuellement est importée. Il est donc justifié que le pays vise d’une part à alléger sa facture pétrolière qui absorbe une part substantielle des recettes nationales d’exportation, et d’autre part à créer des revenus chez les populations rurales pour pouvoir améliorer leurs conditions de vie. Une des voies identifiée pouvant contribuer significativement à atteindre cette vision réside en la valorisation du potentiel de carburants d’origine végétale (biocarburants), productibles localement. La présente stratégie vise l’élaboration d’un cadre de référence pour le développement des biocarburants dans lequel les potentialités et les opportunités des biocarburants sont bien identifiées, évaluées et planifiées pour maximiser leur contribution au développement national. Il est admis, en l’état actuel, que les 2 filières de biocarburant les plus porteuses au Mali sont celles basées sur l’huile de Jatropha(pourghère) et l’éthanol. ANADEBa comme missions: participer à la définition des normes en matière de biocarburants et au suivi de leur mise en œuvre ; veiller à la disponibilité permanente des biocarburants sur le marché ; établir les bases et mécanismes de tarification et participer à l’élaboration de la structure des prix des biocarburants appuyer la Recherche-Développement sur les biocarburants; former, encadrer et suivre les groupements d’artisans en vue de leur professionnalisation ; suivre et évaluer les activités des opérateurs intervenant dans le secteur; assurer la concertation entre partenaires nationaux et internationaux du domaine des biocarburants pour favoriser les échanges technologiques et développer le partenariat. En termes quantitatifs, il s’agit d’aboutir à une réduction de 10% du volume des importations de gasoil à la fin du premier quinquennat; 15% à la fin du second quinquennat et 20% à la fin du troisième. En matière de production de biocarburant, cela va se traduire par une production annuelle d’huile de pourghère estimée à 39,2 millions de litres à

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. l’horizon 2012, 56 millions de litres à l’horizon 2017 et 84 millions de litres en 2022. Les mesures d’accompagnement que l’Etat doit entreprendre sont: • amélioration continue du cadre institutionnel, • facilitations fiscales diverses, • avantages fonciers en faveur des promoteurs industriels et des producteurs d’oléagineux à destination énergétique. Le thème des biocarburants suscite aujourd’hui partout dans le monde un intense regain d’intérêt, essentiellement pour des raisons de protection environnementale. De plus, pour un pays comme le Mali, conjuguant le triple handicap de la pauvreté, de l’enclavement continental et du manque d’hydrocarbures fossiles dans son sous-sol, promouvoir la production et l’utilisation de biocarburants locaux est une nécessité objective pour réduire sa dépendance et impulser son développement. A cet effet, le Mali a opté pour une stratégie nationale conjuguant le développement décentralisé, l’appui au partenariat public-privé et l’ouverture à la coopération internationale. Cette stratégie consistera en une recherche permanente d’équilibre dynamique entre la production décentralisée (à l’échelle de parcelles paysannes avec l’objectif d’une autonomie énergétique des producteurs ruraux) et l’agro-industrie moderne (propre à asseoir une capacité nationale de création de valeur ajoutée). Chair’s Remarks

Nicholas C Ashby, Founder & CEO, Celadon Capital, Malaysia The private and public sectors have to work together to create value. Entrepreneurs and government agencies need to make the sector more attractive from the investors point of view in order to move the industry forward and bring it out of its infancy. Financing Opportunities for the Development of Biofuels

Thierno Bocar Tall, Head of African Biofuels and Renewable Energy Fund,

ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, Togo If a project is risky, developers always have to get the government and overseas development aid to help. Then they can go to the development banks. For the ECOWAS Bank, the minimum investment is $1 million and they only finance equipment. If a developer has an agriculture project it is difficult for ECOWAS to fund the farming side. It can, however, get banks to help developers with the project finance.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. The ECOWAS renewable energy fund can guarantee a loan based on the offtake contract. The fund will be equity to help developers to have liquidity so they can buy shares to participate in the project.—More details on the fund will be ready by mid-November. The Africa Green Energy Technical Assistance Fund was developed for feasibility studies, seed capital, etc. Recently the ECOWAS bank funded a biodiesel project in Accra for $30 million. A key to getting funding by the bank was that the project had the involvement of the government but the promoter died two years ago and now the project has stalled. The problem in Africa is to fix the target market. The development banks need governments to set a fixed blend domestically and that will make it easier for banks to fund projects. The World Bank/IMF sets the ECOWAS Bank’s interest rates. It doesn’t have enough money to do proper agricultural loans. But if projects are designed as public private partnerships, then the private sector can benefit from the lower, better rates for government offered by development banks.

Carbon Finance and Bioenergy for Africa

Durando Ndongsok, Project Manager Africa, First Climate, Switzerland First Climate wants to have an office in Africa but the problem with infrastructure makes it difficult. To visit potential projects, sometimes it’s easier to go from Zurich to Accra than go from Accra to Dakar. When looking at carbon finance, the basis is additionality. An example is a project using improved or ethanol cook stoves that could qualify for the Clean Development Mechanism, which is based on non-annex 1 countries reducing emissions. For the stoves, using fuel wood as a baseline, emissions reductions are based upon using better fuels and/or better technologies. CDM in Africa is always the sad part of the presentation. Not even 2% of the UN registered projects are in Africa. Africa has to be aggressive this time. Climate change is serious, the carbon market is serious, so we have to work aggressively to make it happen in Africa. Some are calling CDM the “Chinese development mechanism” because more than 60% of credits are going there. When, for example, First Climate sees a big solar project, they are aware carbon finance can only bring 5% of the financing. The World Bank was coming to Africa doing CDM capacity building but they weren’t making it clear that carbon finance was something that came after the project started.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. If one goes to China or India, those countries have consultants supporting the local projects but it’s not the case in Africa. Sometimes the Designated National Authority (DNA) connection to industry isn’t working. There are many CDM-related risks because developing the CDM part can take two years and the project could die along the way. The scale of projects in Africa are very small, so people are not interested to invest in putting in for CDM because it costs €80,000-100,000 to put it together for the UN process no matter the size of the project. For countries with forests, the UNFCC won’t accept jatropha as reforestation because the plants don’t grow higher than three meters. However jatropha could be used to get credits for gasification, etc. or other methodologies approved by the UN. For CDM, it’s a matter of being creative to find ways to fit the project into the UN guidelines. An organisation in Senegal has a project with the support of World Bank which have 12 areas all over the country, using rural electrification and getting carbon credits to help offset the prices. For small projects where CDM isn’t financially feasible, it’s important to incorporate ways to connect several similar projects under one umbrella in order to offset initial registration costs. The government needs to do more and better data collection for the baseline monitoring because sometimes there are good projects but can’t prove additionality because the baseline doesn’t exist.

Augustine Acheampong Atoo, Director, Global and Regional Operations,

Ghana Investment Promotion Centre Ghana’s doors are open and welcome for foreign investors to participate in projects, wholly owned by international partners or in joint venture with local ownership. Private investments in the past 15 years have totaled around 3,300 with half 100% foreign owned and the remaining half in joint venture, demonstrating the ease with which it is to choose either option. According to the 2009 IFC Doing Business Report, Ghana is the easiest place to do business in West Africa and among the Top Ten in all of Africa. In Ghana’s energy sector, the transportation sector is by far the largest consumer accounting for about 78% of national consumption. Household consumption and industrial energy consumption are small with only 8% each. There is a heavy dependence on woodfuels, at about 63%, and on imported petroleum at about 27% of total energy consumption. Petroleum imports affect Ghana’s balance of trade negatively, especially considering use is expected to grow 56% between 2005 and 2015. The country had spent roughly half a billion dollars per year on petroleum imports since 2004, until it jumped to US$1.3 billion in 2007.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Barriers to biofuel promotion in Ghana include poor awareness by banks and other financial institutions as well as unclear domestic policy. For biofuels, there has been poor coordination between projects, especially in terms of lessons learned. In Ghana, if people are short of a constant market for what they produce, they will lose interest. Ghana has established several areas of subsidies and tax holidays for investors setting up projects including: 8% on export income for non-traditional exports; 25% for all other activities; a further rebate of 25% for manufacturing companies located in regional capitals other than Accra-Tema; and 50% for those located outside regional capitals. There are even immigrant quotas for expatriate personnel depending on the level of investment. Worldwide Biofuels Experiences

Giovanni Venturini Del Greco, Partner, Agroils & Chairman, Jatrophabook,

Italy One of the main difficulties with jatropha as an industry is the lack of available information. It is not known exactly how much or how jatropha is being produced around the world, making knowledge transfer difficult. Agroils developed Jatrophabook as a way to increase the available knowledge resources. With more than 1,200 registered users and self-reported data from 138 projects, it’s an attempt to shrink that knowledge gap. Other resources include published company data, like D1 who may have 25% of the global jatropha production, and GEXSI survey. Today’s main challenges include producing enough volume in order to attract real demand in the European market. The international financial crisis delayed many cultivation projects, which is pushing back the production of high enough volumes by several years. In the near future, challenges will be around scientific protocols and sustainability schemes. By 2030, roughly 3 million tonnes of jatropha oil will be produced annually with the end markets divided between biojet fuel, origin electricity production, transportation fuel use, and European transportation fuel use with small amounts diverted towards European electricity production. The First Biofuels Refinery in Nigeria

Dr. Felix Babatunde Obada, Group Managing Director & Chief Executive

Officer, Global Biofuels, Nigeria

There are 15 types of sweet sorghum in the world, and the project developers found five that will do well across west Africa. By cross-fertilizing Nigerian breeds with Indian varieties, they discovered they can yield higher sugar content than Nigerian varieties that are thicker than Indian varieties.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Nigeria is currently not producing a single drop of ethanol but the project promoters are working with the government to make sure ethanol is not imported. At Global Biofuels, they can produce at 28-32 US cents per litre. Sweet sorghum is known as a crop that sequesters carbon from the atmosphere more than any other crop in the world. No bank in Nigeria would give a bank guarantee but the African Biofuels and Renewable Energy Fund came to the rescue. Government policies keep changing, especially in terms of the land tenure system, so when it came time to seek funding, those policies made it difficult. Global Biofuels is running two projects simultaneously with one to be duplicated from the other. ECOWAS is talking with them about adopting the project as an ECOWAS initiative because it can be replicated across the entire West African region. Financing for one of the projects is closed (100% funded by the Brazilian government), while the other is still open. Each state that the project works with requires a minimum of 10,000 hectares. The power generation aspect of the project is simple. You have something that you burn in the boiler and there’s a turbine that turns it into electricity. The promoters are applying to the Nigerian power authorities to be an independent power producer. The government is asking that the power be sold directly to them as they pay higher prices than the authorities, but at the end of the day they may end up putting into the national grid. Day 3 Jatropha

Ensuring the Environmental Sustainability of Jatropha Production and Use

Dr. Guido Reinhardt, Scientific Director, IFEU Institute, Germany The IFEU Institute is working with the European Commission to make sure biofuels become sustainable, using lifecycle analysis tools. A lot of discussion has been taking place about jatropha for the last three to five years. The plant has been used traditionally in many places in the world, with endemic species in Asia and Latin America. In Europe, there is a focus on looking for energy security but there are no big measures to work for rural development. Biofuels turned out not to be sustainable in every case, but only in some cases. Europe is discussing how to move on and only produce sustainable biofuels. To give some perspective, the German taxpayers paid 8 billion euros to promote biofuels in Germany, which is equal to the national GDP of Ghana. Sustainability, ecology and social issues are the main issues because economic sustainability is just assumed—or else it won’t work.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Jatropha biodiesel, when compared with fossil diesel, saves GHG if the byproducts are included in the lifecycle analysis. There are some GHG emission reductions with jatropha, but there is more acidification than with fossil diesel. So it’s not completely in favour of jatropha, but more of a balance with fossil diesel. From an environmental point of view, there are some positive aspects but also some negative implications. This pattern is well known with other biofuels. The best results come when one uses the co-products for bioenergy, which could even double the energy output. For example, using the cake for energy production through gasification or in a boiler rather than using the cake for fertiliser. The 35% GHG emissions reductions against fossil fuel as required for the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive cannot be met by jatropha biodiesel. The shells and husks are not eligible for the EU’s lifecycle analysis calculations. Reinhardt does not believe the EU will change the RED to include byproducts so there is a great need to optimise the whole system, beginning with cultivation measures. When jatropha is produced in a central system, such as a plantation, there is higher efficiency, even though it requires more transportation. Jatropha is still best to be used as a fuel for electricity generation rather than for transport fuels. If you factor in land use change, the results vary considerably depending on where jatropha is grown. If there’s some vegetation already existing, there is likely going to be a negative GHG balance. If there is no vegetation, then it’s positive for the GHG balance. Jatropha grows under tropical conditions very well. If there’s a lot of water available, there can be high yields. Usually a producer wants to have high yields, so they go into areas with high water and fertile soil, but then they get into food vs. fuel issues because the land in those areas could be used to grow other crops. Default values for jatropha were selected in a way that it wouldn’t meet the minimum GHG requirements under the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive. The default values are based on worse conditions so that the EU doesn’t have to worry about bad production. For jatropha, the worst case is not based on tropical forests even though that is the worst-case scenario. It is based on no-go areas. If the actual values are below the default, then the lifecycle analysis would be better than the default value. The same principle was used for all other biofuels. The EU’s fuel standard setting body, CEN, hasn’t yet created a standard for jatropha because it won’t likely be a 100% blend, but rather a mix with other biodiesels and mineral oil to reach the right standards for the oil companies.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Jatropha Myths & Realities

Cedric Lombardo, General Manager and Special Adviser to the President of

Ivory Coast in Charge of Environment, BeDevelopment, Cote d’Ivoire In Ivory Coast, the new trend is trying to use satellite operations to find where the carbon is and to capture it with plants. For BeDevelopment, jatropha is only a tool for rural development. If it can succeed there, then it can perhaps have an agro-industrial impact in West Africa. “If I go to my banker with this data on jatropha production, he will not talk to me,” said Lombardo. Jatropha is not fully domesticated and the origin of the seed has an impact on where it grows. In Burkina Faso, after one year, Brazilian and Asian varieties didn’t grow but local varieties did. Crickets, mice, caterpillars and other pests liked the jatropha. No water, no fertilizers, no miracle. In West Africa, the value chain is very easy to get up to the pressing part. What is needed is to develop the value chain all the way to the burning of the oil. Without this, no one can create an agro-industrial process. It has to be organised among all of the agricultural practices to assure the introduction of uses. The industry has to create all parts of the jatropha market because bankers are not interested in small farmers’ interests, only in big revenues. Using jatropha locally could be useful for the farmers because rural diesel is 16% more expensive than urban diesel, and when it is produced by cooperatives, jatropha is 11% cheaper than urban biodiesel. Sweet sorghum has the best potential in West Africa but it is mainly dedicated to ethanol, and therefore gasoline. In West Africa, jatropha is interesting because it is for diesel replacement, so it can replace fuel for cars, tractors and generators in the real rural framework. There is no available information on financial returns for jatropha, so no one knows all of the full costs. It is difficult to develop a real business plan. Social, health and environmental risks are yet to be assessed. In Ivory Coast, it is possible to replace old cotton growing areas with jatropha because the land has little water and little other use. There will not be great yields but it will develop the rural areas.

Jatropha in Africa – Economic Perspectives

Reinhard Henning, Managing Director, Bagani, Germany Pictures are convincing but are not self-explanatory. One needs to start with good seeds and then propagate vegetatively with cuttings etc, but not from seeds, or you’ll have bad results.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. Jatropha helps to repair soil after 20 years of decomposition of the leaves and other biomass, so the environmental restorative properties are not quick fixes for poor soils. Production of biodiesel is too complicated because one needs to engage chemists, import methanol, etc. so it is better to just use the oil. In Garalo, Mali, local plantations and production from farmers create electricity for the village using a generator run on jatropha biodiesel. Soap is an important co-product because it’s needed in the villages and uses simple technologies. You can increase the yield of jatropha through insect pollination but bees aren’t found around them naturally. One can increase the number of branches by regularly pruning the plant, that way it’s not growing so high and one can pick the fruits by hand rather than if the tree gets to be 5 metres high. In Mali, there was an experience where women were able to make a lot of money from the soap-making but the men didn’t like that the women were making so much money so they forebade them from doing jatropha. For jatropha, a farmer needs two to three workers per hectare. If one has 50,000 hectares, then one needs 150,000 workers. They will also need houses, buses, infrastructure, etc. even if the work is only seasonal. If it’s a monoculture, there are even more pests so pesticides are needed to control them. There is an indirect concurrence with food production because the labour is not available for food production and the food is not edible. A rough estimate is two to three hours of work for each litre of jatropha oil. Jatropha Plantation Case Study

Ohene Akoto, Director of Operations, Jatropha Africa, Ghana Jatropha Africa is working with Greenergy and Imperial College to breed against certain jatropha viruses. In the northern part of Ghana, shea nut trees existed already. In a hectare of land, there are between 12-20 shea trees with each tree yielding 20kg. so the returns on jatropha are boosting cashflow. Workers are paid 4 cedis per day, which is above the minimum wage.

Latest Developments in Jatropha Project Design

Ulrich B Riemann, Managing Director, Bionic Palm, Ghana Bionic Palm concluded a 15-month test phase in August, preparing for a general roll out of the overall project.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. There is a need for revenue streams other than jatropha because producers need to pay their workers for the first few years before jatropha starts producing. Bionic Palm found that it is cheaper to use manual labour rather than mechanised harvesting, yet it isn’t feasible to have 30,000 workers, so the size of the farm is driving the company into mechanisation. The economic model of the project will work when prices for seed goes down. Until then, they have to cost cuts per hectare every day. Bees don’t do what they want. They put three hives per hectare, but the bees go where they want, to eat what they’re used to, and it takes time for them to get used to the jatropha. Bionic Palm is working on a 10-year soil improvement plan with jatropha which is the main justification for continuing with jatropha before it is profitable. Works are in process to improve water and nutrient management for the overall project area. The main goal is not jatropha but to be the biggest food supplier for Accra. If a project is designed to have several revenue streams, then management has to focus on all the different aspects with the same energy. Riemann believes his project is building real sustainability because he pays his workers. If they remained subsistence farmers, they would have the entire family working on the farm. If you have workers, then the wife stays at home (few choose to work) and the children go to school. It’s important to remember that one can believe nothing one reads on the internet. Riemann has seen trees waterlogged for four months and they live. His plants keep growing during the dry season, even during the hamatan winds. They shed their leaves sometimes but they keep growing. There is no need to refine straight vegetable oil into biodiesel in Ghana or in West Africa, he believes. It’s better go to second-generation biomass-based biofuels. You should yield 10 tonnes/year/ha of biomass waste and then put it through a biorefinery process.

Bringing Worldwide Experiences to West Africa

Dominic Fava, Business Development Manager, D1 Oils Plant Science, UK D1 Oils Plant Science engaged an ECOFYS study to look at the GHG lifecycle analysis of jatropha biodiesel, which showed 66% savings against fossil diesel. Not all the 220,000 ha D1 Oils planted in the beginning of its projects were of high quality and that figure may go down before it goes back up again as some trees are pulled out and replanted.

Bioenergy Markets West Africa Conference Report This report provides a summary of the proceedings of the event and is to be used as a development tool. It has been prepared by an independent 3 party and the views and comments reflect their interpretation of the event. Neither party can be held liable for any differing viewpoints. As soon as jatropha drops its leaves, it goes into dormancy and doesn’t produce. If it’s waterlogged, it will survive but it will be weakened and open to diseases and pests. Jatropha is kind of like a cactus with all the water on the outside rather than the inside of the plant. Freezing will kill the outside but you will keep the roots unless there have been a few days of freezing that permeates the soil. When selecting seeds, one needs to think about whether they are selecting based on first year yields or on long-term yields? It is the long-term yields that count most. Fava says producers shouldn’t go anywhere near cuttings because the plants don’t end up with a taproot. There’s a real problem with micropropagation, too, he says, and believes that seedlings are the answer. Gender Considerations in an Integrated Biofuel and Shea Butter Extraction

Project in Ghana

Sabina Anokye Mensah, Food Scientist, ENERGIA/Gratis Foundation, Ghana Women and men have different roles in the energy system. Women bear the main burden for energy for cooking, which is made worse by health and safety impacts and scarcity of energy resources. There is a need for more and modern energy resources to improve the quality of life. Upholding women’s rights upholds one of the most important impacts of climate change. Women are asking to be part of the world and not victims of inefficient decisions. Women’s empowerment should be one of the priorities in biofuel production and marketing. When developing biofuel projects, project promoters shouldn’t leave women behind. Women are responsible for 80% of subsistence agriculture so when developing projects and policies, they must take into account men, women, boys and girls, and then try to mitigate the negative aspects. During ENERGIA’s project, they trained women’s husbands, then the women themselves and the district assembly, so when the project started everyone knew what was going on. Because they were producing quality shea butter, powered by jatropha oil, there was more demand for the butter. They were able to do the processing in four steps instead of seven. They were able to start banking because they had an increase in revenues. Now the children are in school and the husbands appreciate the women more because of the gender sensitisation workshops. At first the women were afraid to handle the machines but after the gender sensitisation, they were able to work with the machines and repair them themselves. There was a paradigm shift involving women in the decision-making process as a whole.