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Liberia: Developing an Ethanol Industry for Energy Efficiency

Syrulwa Somah, Phd

28 March 2008

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opinion

As the world is at a blink of energy crisis, Liberia should be proactive to plan for this unnecessary energy crisis quickly with one of her blessings (sugarcane) that can significantly reduce unemployment, deforestation, global warning and open up a huge Sub-Saharan African market for sugarcane growers. In this new Liberia, we ought to be ahead of our time and not slow walk or be like an "obstacle man", whom, regardless of what suggestion was advanced, his mind instantly harbored all possible obstacles in connection with it. Our nation will soon be facing a greater energy crisis that is likely to take away all our money so we must begin to dream and take action now to prevent a future energy crisis in Liberia. We should not go crawling through this pending energy crisis of your time on our hands and knees half-defeated. We are ought to stand up to it, that is all, and we must not give way under it until something breaks. And it won't be us, it will be the energy crisis.

I believe this project should use the strengths of Liberian culture and traditions to make Liberian reconstruction more manageable to its people. It should use available resources to mobilize local ex-combatants and give hope to the people and districts that the government cannot provide employment for now. I believe the project will spillover mainly to support local enterprises in the creation of jobs by training and establishing farmer-to-farmer programs and create dependency brigades at community levels to control hunger and violence in Liberia. Indeed, since poverty, unemployment, and the lack of food are some of the major causes of violence and military coups in Africa, it is imperative that sources of employment be provided for Liberian ex-combatants and other destitute and internally displaced Liberians with a structured environment such as the proposed sugarcane plantation for an ethanol project.

I believe the Ethanol Project in Liberia should be a two fold pilot project. Firstly, it should be a commitment to create relatively easy production of ethanol as alternative fuel to minimize the high cost of gasoline in Liberia today. The price of gasoline in Liberia, considering an 85 percent unemployment rate and low civil servant earnings of about US$30 per month and subsistence spending rate of about US$0.33 per day, the price for a gallon of gasoline in Liberia today is US $4.50 to $5.00. Liberians families, businesses, and farmers are being hit hard everyday by the huge rise in gas prices-an increase of 100 percent in the last 14 years alone. Indeed, these record high prices for a gallon of gasoline mean Liberians cannot travel or move their goods or must pay hard earned pennies a month to fill their vehicle tanks and upkeep their fuel generators for electricity supply. Liberia, it seems, cannot be developed with such energy constraints hanging over her without finding or planning for a lasting solution to the energy problem by using home grown alternative fuel.

I am saying these things because when you are a slow walker, according to a Bassa proverb, you should make yourself available ahead of the road so you can avoid being left behind. Hence, I think you all know that before the advent of transportation, rural poor people often carried heavy loads over long distances, and the slower person often fell behind the line, thereby becoming deadweight on the queue. In such a case, the group may end-up missing the market sale or they may end-up taking portion of the slower person's load to make their load heavier. Thus, as a mark of profound learning, the Bassa elder would tell the Bassa youth that the slow walker should always be ahead of the road. This is why you need to dream big, I need to dream big, and all of us have to dream big so we cannot become deadweights in the national efforts to rebuild Liberia. We must act our part well as citizens, businesses, presidents, ministers, or administrator as we all strive to redevelop and rebuild our homeland of Liberia. So go ahead of the road now if you consider yourself to be a slower walker.

Because many of us in Liberia do not dream big or walk faster, we have managed to slow down the development in this country. Over the years, we as a people have sadly continued to live too small for our spirits to the point that our nation is so blessed with everything its needs for development and we do not know it. Allow me to tell you some of the blessing endowed on us that make me wonder why we continue to be at the bottom of the well. Our nation is blessed with 43% of the Upper Guinea Forest and the earth's finest climate and fertile womb for agricultural enterprise: for growing bananas, rice, cacao, cassava, coffee, kola, mango, okra, oil palm, sugarcane, papaya, rubber and much more. Iron ore tops the list of our mineral wealth, making this country one of the top iron ore exporters in the world. In addition, we have in Liberia barite, cyanite, diamonds, gold, graphite, and manganese, which when exploited properly, can afford each and every Liberian the opportunity to go to professional school or college, build and live in decent homes, and enjoy great health, peace and stability.

Liberia also has nearly 14 million acres of ....; 230 species of useable timber such as Mahogany, Walnut, Makere, palm trees, red ironwood (Ekki for house and bridge building), Teak, Whismore, Camwood, Abura, and Niango. And in the wildlife department, the likes of elephants, water buffalo, viviparous toad, cross river gorilla, water buffalo, zebra duiker, leopards, diana monkey, chimpanzees, white mangabey, pygmy hippopotamus, many bird species, including magnificent birds such as the "dancing bird", eagles to gymnobucco calvus , gymnobucco peli , pogoniulus scolopaceus, pogoniulus white-breasted guinea fowl atroflavus, pogoniulus subsulphureus, buccanodon duchaillui and lybius vieilloti form a part of this natural resources endowment. Yet we have not realized the promise of natural endowment. Brothers and sisters, do you not see why the rest of world leaves us behind? Brothers and sisters, do you not see why none of these natural resources has the value of a grain of sand?

Mind you, there are nations of the world that do not have as much as we do but they turn their single blessing into assets. Take the African nation of Senegal. The number one natural resource of Senegal is peanut, but with this crop, Senegal has one of the most developed and peaceful democratic societies in Africa. But I am not going to focus on using peanut for national development in Liberia. I would like to focus on how Liberia can reduced its dependency on foreign nations for gasoline and other energy supplies if we could develop an ethanol industry in Liberia by increasing sugarcane production and processing while learning from the experiences of Brazil and other Nations.

Sugarcane as a source for ethanol production

Sugarcane has its modern origins in Papua New Guinea and it is grown worldwide. As far back as the 3000 BC, India was a major producer of raw sugar, a pure whole unrefined non-centrifugal cane sugar, called Panela, Gur Jaggery, or "poor people's sugar." The components of sugarcane in Liberia are the same as the ones in India, Jamaica, Barbados, Panama, Cuba, Brazil and other nations. The nations that I have named have earned their names in history for making profit out of sugarcane. For example, for 100 years Barbados remained the richest of all the European colonies in the Caribbean region from sugar. By 1740s, the sugarcane sweepstake landed in Jamaica and Saint-Domingue when Barbados and Jamaica jointly took the helm as the world's primary sugar producers. The Africans nations of Mauritius and Malawi, in addition to Brazil, are significant exporters of such specialty sugars.

Like Brazil, Cuba dreamed rose as the richest land in the Caribbean with sugar being its dominant crop. Cuba also prospered above other islands because they used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops. They had been introduced to modern milling methods such as water mills, enclosed furnaces, steam engines, and vacuum pans. All these things increased their production and production rate. The only difference between Liberia and Brazil is that our first major sugarcane plantation project, the Liberia Sugar Corporation (LIBSUCO) in Maryland, which was established during the Tolbert administration didn't last. Our nation allowed herself to be caught between the politics of Taiwan and China and when Liberia established relations with Taiwan. The diplomatic relations with Taiwan not only angered the Chinese, but also caused the closure of LIBSUCO after the Chinese withdrew from the project. This 6,000-acre sugarcane plantation field is still in the southeastern-most part of Maryland. There is a need to dream big and reach out to other nations like Brazil and send delegation to rejuvenate LIBSUCO.

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