LAST week’s headline stating that Tanzanian motorists will be filling up their car tanks with an ethanol-petrol blend within four months sounds like good news at the outset.
Any news that promises to reduce fuel prices, by any margin, is good news for anyone who is affected by the price of petrol, which is practically everyone.
The Minister of Energy and Minerals has been quoted saying that the government will announce the use of ethanol as a fuel substitute soon. An official of the Tanzanian Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) says that it involves a mixture of petrol through ethanol from Brazil. Tanzania is expected to begin production of ethanol within five years.
The promised ten per cent reductions in the price of fuel can be significant over the long term. Curious to find out how much a ten per cent saving means to my budget, I estimated that I buy just over 1,000 litres of fuel every year and at current prices, the total bill reaches Shs.2,323,200/-.
Saving of Sh.232, 320/- may seem insignificant to an individual, but taken on a national scale the savings should be substantial. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol and a world leader in the biofuels industry, thus production of ethanol comes with the potential of raising the supply of electricity to the national grid.
The Brazilian model utilizes sugarcane waste to produce electricity for the ethanol plants and supplies up to 3 per cent of the total electricity to the national grid. Because of the current power shedding arrangement that affects Butiama regularly, I have the unenviable experience of having to drive to Musoma regularly and sit in a noisy bar to enjoy the benefits of modern life: a laptop and electricity that drives the laptop.
Having to drive the 80-kilometre round trip means my annual fuel expense is considerably higher than the estimates, and so a project that even remotely promises a more reliable supply of electricity is irresistible.
We know of promises of reductions in fuel prices that have remained promises because enforcing agencies have been too slow to take action against malpractice by petrol stations that have continued to maintain high retail prices long after the drastic fall of World crude oil prices.
Again, Brazil has mandated up to 25 per cent of ethanol in a petrol-ethanol mix to guarantee a price advantage over petrol and it may be necessary to require a minimum percentage makes up the Tanzanian blend, with stronger safeguards to ensure compliance. Some caution has been raised against the use of land for the production of energy products. It is feared that food security could be compromised.
Research indicates that it should not necessarily be the case, particularly because of the natural limits that impede conversion of land use to ethanol production. In the case of sugarcane-based ethanol production, not all land is suitable for the production of sugarcane, which is only 7.5 per cent of arable land in Brazil’s case.
Only 1.5 per cent of that arable land is used for sugarcane-based ethanol production. The topography, soil composition, and availability of water are some of the critical factors. It is true that even the small proportion of arable land that is suitable for sugarcane production could also be suitable for agricultural crops and entice farmers away from food production into the more lucrative gains offered by supplying the ethanol industry. But it appears that the government is taking steps to mitigate the increased demand for suitable land for ethanol production.
One of the companies that is reportedly investing in ethanol production has been allowed only 20,000 hectares of the original 200,000 hectares it had requested. Consistency makes all the difference in whether good intentions remain good intentions, intended to protect the interests of both current and future generations.
Watchdogs should keep vigil to ensure that a cap is maintained to limit the total land that is provided for ethanol production, and to ensure that the investor who is permitted use of only 20,000 hectares today does not mysteriously end up publishing a report to shareholders confirming a total land under cultivation of 300,000 hectares ten years down the road.
In the short run, humanity can survive longer on an empty fuel tank than on an empty stomach. But a long term perspective demands a solution against a rise in both rising food and fuel costs.
madaraka.nyerere@gmail.com
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