Abstract
The Federal Government of Nigeria recently announced the replacement of kerosene household cooking fuel with ethanol produced from cassava feedstock. The project was called “cassakero”. The cassakero project aims to install 10,000 units of small-scale bio-ethanol refineries, operated by small-scale agro-processors across the country. The aim of this article is to present the results of an energy analysis of the ethanol cooking fuel produced from cassava feedstock by small-scale processors under Nigerian conditions Results show that for small-scale cassava ethanol production with the use of agrochemicals is: 11.61 MJ/l for total energy input, a Net Energy Ratio of 1.20, 2.29 MJ/l for Net Energy Gain, and 11.01 MJ/l for Net Renewable Energy Value. Without the use of agrochemicals ethanol production is 10.38 MJ/l for total energy input, a Net Energy Ratio of 1. 34, 3.52 MJ/l for Net Energy Gain, and 12.25 MJ/l for Net Renewable Energy Value. This is the first time that energy analysis has been carried out for small-scale cassava ethanol production under Nigerian conditions.
Highlights
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in November 2009 announced the replacement of kerosene household cooking and lighting fuel with ethanol produced from cassava feedstock in a project called cassakero
Direct energy in the form of gasoline, diesel, wood, and electricity accounted for nearly 90% of the total energy input in the scenario with agrochemicals, and 100% without
Results of the energy analysis (Tables 3-5) show the total energy required to produce and distribute a litre of low concentration ethanol under Nigerian conditions by small-scale processors is 11.61MJ with agrochemical input, and 10.38 without agrochemicals, excluding credits from co-products. These results show that the production of ethanol from cassava feedstock in Nigeria by smallholder is energy efficient, because the net energy ratio (NER) is greater than 1 even without allocation of credits to the co-products, which include biogas, fertilizer, and animal feed
Summary
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in November 2009 announced the replacement of kerosene (paraffin) household cooking and lighting fuel with ethanol produced from cassava feedstock in a project called cassakero. The replacement of paraffin created an immediate demand of 3.75 billion litres of ethanol per annum [1]. Since 2007 when Nigeria entered the biofuel race by releasing her national policy on biofuel [2], the current ethanol demand for the implementation of E10 policy and replacement of cooking paraffin is 5.14 billion litres per annum [3]. The bulk of the current production is produced by Alconi/Nosak, UNIKEM and Intercontinental Distilleries (118.6 million litres representing nearly 90% of the total production) which rely on imported crude ethanol precursors from Brazil. The Allied Atlantic Distilleries Ltd, which commenced operations in 1999, is producing 30,000 litres per day of ethanol from locally sourced cassava feedstock [3]
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