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| MALAWI FOR "GREEN VEHICLES " By: Lameck Masina |
8/10/2008 |
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As the price of crude oil keeps on hitting a record high, the Malawi government has embarked on an ambitious project to ensure that all vehicles in the country switch to the cheaper and greener alternative
fuel – ethanol - in a few years. The Malawi government is fully funding the 5-year US$1 million project.
Under the initiative, local scientists are working on the possibility of converting conventional vehicles into dual-fuel vehicles, or flexible-fuel - ‘flex-fuel’ - vehicles (FFVs), which can run on a combination
of fuels. The Lilongwe Technical College (LTC), which falls under the authority of the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, has been conducting the research on an old Mitsubishi Pajero. The vehicle was first tested in 2007 in the commercial capital Blantyre. It completed a distance of over 2,100km at an average speed of 110km/hr on ethanol with consumption at 8km/litre. The results suggested that it was an outstanding technical achievement. Freeman Kalirani leads the research team at the LTC which has been modifying the vehicles to run on ethanol or petrol, or a combination
of ethanol and petrol in a single tank. Kalirani says the research team will continue comparing the engine performance of ethanol-powered and petrol-driven vehicles to test and check on the long-term effects of ethanol on the fuel system of vehicles. “We will also gather data on the performance of a flex vehicle and build capacity for Malawians to maintain ethanol-driven or flex vehicles.
So far I have converted two vehicles Nissan and a Pajero. They are running 100 percent on ethanol and there are other two vehicles that are flex type that are running on either petrol or ethanol or any mixtures of the two,” he says. He says so far the results are promising because by May 2008 the Pajero covered 18,000 kilometers and that no major component has been damaged in the engine. “What remains is that we want to travel a little longer to have more kilometers covered, so as to tell the people that ethanol does not damage the engine. When you listen to the sound, people don’t know that it is running on ethanol, the only difference is the smell that comes from the exhaust which shows that it is ethanol”, he says. He explains that fuel consumption depends on the speed and age of the car, saying, newer vehicles would consume between 10km/litre and 15km/litre. Malawi has been using ethanol-blended fuel since the energy crisis in the early 1970s. Petroleum companies such as British Petroleum (BP) Malawi, TOTAL-Malawi and Chevron Malawi blend 10 percent ethanol with 90 percent petrol.
A switch to ethanol will not only create employment opportunities in the country’s sugarcane industry but will also benefit the environment. Government says the decision to use ethanol is in line with procedures aimed at reducing emission as demanded by the UN Framework on Climate Change. This will also help to mitigate the effects of natural disasters that are caused by changes in climatic conditions.
The project will also help Malawi save forex currently being spent on fuel imports. Statistics shows that between 1995 and 2000, Malawi imported around 80 to 90 million litres of petrol each year, with the cost rising from $13 million to $36.1 million over the same period. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization((FAO), in the first half of the year, a barrel of bio-ethanol in Brazil, was half the price of a barrel of oil. The current price of crude oil is over $90 per barrel. Matthews Chikaonda, chief executive officer of Press Corporation Limited, a local conglomerate that owns the only two companies which produce Ethanol Company (ETHCO) and Presscane says the country produced enough molasses, a by-product of making sugar, to produce ethanol. ETHCO produces 7 million litres of ethanol a year at its plant in Dwangwa, a town in central Malawi, while Presscane delivers 10.8 million litres, from its plant in southern Malawi. Each of the factories has a design capacity of 16 million litres a year, but is operating below capacity because of the low availability of molasses. However, Chikaonda said there was a possibility that the two factories could produce ethanol at full capacity because there is room for expansion in existing sugarcane plantations. Chikaonda, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi says the country would save millions of dollars once all vehicles started using locally produced ethanol instead of imported petroleum. Chikaonda stressed that the introduction of ethanol-driven vehicles will have greater benefits for the country in the long run. He singled out Brazil, which is
Malawi’s role model in this endeavor, as a shining example of how ethanol-propelled cars have helped improve the economy. “Since ethanol is locally produced, the introduction of these cars will induce a significant reduction in the amount we spend to import fuel,” Chikaonda told a group of local executives that had gathered to witness the launch of the vehicle in Blantyre. Observers say there is need for proper government planning to expand ethanol production capacity to cater for the whole country if the project is to be a success. Some consumers caution that further research is needed and government should tread carefully in its search for alternative cheaper fuels. “It is too early to start celebrating. Let us be honest with ourselves. The question we should be asking ourselves is ‘is Malawi ready to meet the demand once it abandons imported fuels?’ At this point, an honest answer can be ‘no’,” says Joel Banda a car owner in the commercial capital of Blantyre. Meanwhile Malawi’s department of science and technology, in partnership with ETHCO, is also promoting the importation of Brazilian ‘flex-fuel’ vehicles that can run on ethanol.
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