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Namibia: Bio-Fuels for the Future
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New Era (Windhoek)
1 February 2008
Posted to the web 1 February 2008
Catherine Sasman
Windhoek
With crude oil prices unlikely to decrease from an all-time high of about US$100 per barrel, Namibia joins the race to find sustainable alternatives.
Imagine spending N$10 on fuel to cover a distance of about 600 kilometers. This is what Michael Linke did some weeks back with his diesel truck.
It is not a conventional diesel truck, however. In October, he converted the truck to be able to use waste vegetable oil in tandem with diesel.
The consideration for the conversion was not only to cut costs with petroleum prices that shot up last year.
As the managing director of the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia (BEN Namibia), Linke is particularly concerned about sustainable transport to mitigate the effects of carbon dioxide on global warming.
"The burning of vegetable oil does not produce sulfur and heavy metal emissions; in bigger cities diesel emissions cause more deaths than road accidents," said Linke, from his backyard in Windhoek where he showed New Era how the vegetable oil-run engine works.
"The equipment is pretty simple; it is available technology that could be produced locally within five to 10 years," said Linke.
The conversion system consisting of three components comes from a USA company Greasecar, and is valued from US$900 to US$1 200.
A standard diesel fuel filter and two valves enable alternating between diesel and vegetable oil. A switch is attached close to the steering wheel to alternate the fueling of the engine.
He also fitted an extra 50-liter tank at the back of the truck for the vegetable oil, while the diesel tank is still in place.
Linke gets his supplies of waste vegetable oils from Wimpies, Nandos and the Gourmet Restaurant that use huge amounts of oil in their cooking.
Because the waste oil, which is not suitable for human consumption, has food particles like chicken or chips, Linke uses a cloth to filter the oil.
This process separates water, food particles and hydrogenated oils from the vegetable oil that will be used as fuel.
"It is a very simple method of cleaning the oil. One can even do the pre-filtering with an old pair of jeans that have become fibrous. One should be careful that there is no bacterial contamination of the oil."
A drawback is that vegetable oil does not heat up as fast as diesel. The energy density of the vegetable oil is about five to ten percent less than diesel.
Because it takes longer to heat up, said Linke, it becomes more viable to run the engine on diesel, and only about 20 percent of vegetable oil, when driving in town.
Before switching over to the use of waste vegetable oil, Linke was running his truck on bio-diesel, which he produced from oil extracted from the jatropha curcas plant, which he planted in his backyard.
Vegetable and bio-diesel fuel can, however, only be used on diesel engines. Diesel cars use injectors, while petrol cars burn fuels.
The search for alternative fuels, and bio-fuels, is gaining momentum here in Namibia, said Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Tourism with the Polytechnic of Namibia, Lameck Mwewa, primarily because of the exorbitant price of crude oil, concerns over global warming.
Another consideration is that the production of bio-fuels locally is seen as a means to fight poverty. And the demand for energy is growing. When populations and living standards rise, the demand for modern energy increases as well. Today, global wealth is 30 times bigger than what it was at the turn of the twentieth century and the world population has quadrupled.
As a result, global energy demand has grown more than ten-fold. This trend is likely to continue.
Interest is particularly growing in the perennial oil nut bearing jatropha tree, which is viewed as the most feasible plant for dry-land cultivation for the extraction of bio-oil.
The plant was often used for snakebites, as an insect repellent and for constipation.
The jatropha tree originates from South America, but was brought to the southern African region by Portuguese explorers.
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The seeds of the plant grow on low fertility soils in low and high rainfall areas; it has a small gestation period, and can be harvested in non-rainy seasons.
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