BIOGAS PRODUCTION IN NIGERIA

BIOGAS PROJECT

Biogas is a form of energy derived entirely from renewable biomass sources. The varied benefits include the renewability of its sources, its use as cooking gas, for electric energy generation and co-production of bio-fertilizer for agriculture, the potential for advancing the development of the rural economy, its effects in improving public sanitation and health and the low carbon emission arising from its use. Biogas by its increasing adoption and deepening worldwide use promises to complement and even compete as a major source of clean and renewable energy in the world.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane. Methane emissions into the atmosphere from landfills, animal fart and other bio-waste from industry and homes are major contributors to the depletions in the ozone layer that are direct causes of climate change. Worldwide Biogas adoption, production and use from these animal and vegetable waste sources may therefore hold the key to reversing the looming disaster of climate change and environmental degradation while working to deliver at the same time the many benefits arising from the use of biogas.

The Nigerian domestic energy sector by the fact of extensive local production is dominated so overwhelmingly by non-renewable hydrocarbon energy fuels with its attendant problem of conflict generation, environmental pollution and the destruction of both flora and fauna. Abundant hydrocarbon energy sources have caused Government to bother little about alternative sources of energy for its people, particularly when that energy source is produced and utilized outside government control. This may provide the explanation for the late search and adoption of biogas technology and other renewable sources for energy production. It also has meant that LPG cooking gas which would have achieved widespread adoption and be cheap and readily available for use has remained expensive, scarce and available only to the elite urban populations.

The widespread adoption of biogas for cooking and electricity generation and its application for powering machinery would dramatically impact positively on Nigeria’s quality of life indices by reducing energy costs, improving sanitary, health and environmental conditions while helping to preserve forests by stopping wood cutting for cooking purposes and at the same time removing drudgery from rural life.

The Warri Biogas Project as a pioneer investment on biogas production will provide an alternative source of energy for the people in these parts who live within the abundance of energy from hydrocarbon sources but do not partake in its benefits. Located right in the middle of vast natural gas and hydrocarbon fields the Warri Biogas Project will be contending with deeply entrenched interests in oil and gas production. These interests come with deep pockets and a vice grip on energy policy formulation. However, biogas production requires much lower capital outlay and investment in biogas production is propelled by popular will and is driven not by the need for massive profit but more by the need to satisfy basic energy and fertilizer requirements for the community and homestead.

In biogas production, all levels of investment are possible, from the massive industrial 250m³digesters to the bucket sized homestead digester. Biogas production offers the possibility for people to satisfy their own energy requirements and improve their quality of life outside the control of big corporations and governments. This holds true for many other alternative energy sources but biogas is distinctive as a naturally occurring product that can be harnessed in every possible capacity and for its varied uses outside energy production particularly in bio-fertilizers and environmental remediation.

The adoption of biogas technologies by the rural population opens a vast opportunity for people to produce cheaper energy for themselves for cooking, electricity, to power machinery, stop forest defoliation through cutting for firewood, remove odorous waste, improve community sanitary conditions and produce bio-fertilizers. Biogas production therefore offers a chance for popular self-help for families to provide the basic needs of modern life and reverse the unrelenting degradation of their environment.

Depending on the technology adopted, the level of investment chosen and the range and segmentation of products envisaged, the Biogas Project holds the prospect of pioneering a business that will be imitated and replicated in large numbers in Delta state and beyond for as long as it can overcome start-up difficulties, build a customer base and earn profit in the near term. The viability of investments in biogas production has been established by the UNDP and other research and finance agencies across the world.

It has been established for instance that under good management conditions, biogas plants with digester capacities of 250m³and above recover investments and turn a profit in about six months. Other lower capacities make their recoveries in more time depending on the volume of the digester and the sagacity of management. This strong assurance of investment recovery even in the short term should encourage investment and assure financiers of ventures in the emergent sector. The world including Nigeria remains insatiable in its energy needs.

Biogas is at the centre of a burgeoning eco-economy worldwide and Nigeria is a late entrant to this earth redeeming economic frontier. It is hoped therefore that the Warri Biogas Project will provide the needed stimulus to a nationwide adoption and investment in biogas and bio-fertilizer production particularly in the rural communities where the near total absence of cheap and clean energy sources has held down development and stunted growth in quality of life for so long.

The financial projections for a 5 year period show alignment with worldwide UNDP studies and predictions. There is no doubt that on-site work and local conditions may show variations in costs and income yields but these changes will not deviate wildly from known projection for as long as production conditions and cost regimes remain within plan.

Investments in the energy sector show a predictable and general pattern. Heavy investments are required at the beginning for research, exploratory and development work after which if successful, royalties are collected for the next half century. This is true for the oil and gas, solar, wind, geo-thermal and even the battery industries. The exceptions however, are the energy industries that require the cultivation of crops continually e.g. biodiesel and ethanol production. In the biogas industry, raw material costs are almost always free which account for its remarkably fast turn-around time as the cash flow projection for the Biogas Project shows.