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.
