‘Biofuel producers should tap into aviation’

Sub-Saharan Africa is seen as one of the major expansion areas for the production of biofuel. However, there are limitations on the amount it can produce, which is why the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) advocates that it be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for the aviation industry. “With the rapid growth of air traffic, it is estimated that global aviation will account for over 22% of the world’s total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 due to the rapid growth of air traffic,”  said Tjasa Bole-Rentel, WWF  bioenergy programme manager. She believes a primary motivation for the use of biofuels is that they represent a renewable substitute for fossil fuels and can potentially lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from air transport. “The production of sustainable biofuels in subSaharan Africa should be
prioritised for the aviation industry which has limited options when it comes to reducing carbon emissions,” commented Bole-Rentel, noting that sustainable production of biofuels for the global aviation industry was seen as a possible option for tapping into sub-Saharan Africa’s underutilised agricultural land potential. She pointed to a WWF report titled ‘Taking off: Understanding the sustainable aviation biofuel potential in sub-Saharan Africa’, which stated that sub-Saharan Africa could at best contribute between 30% and 90% of longterm alternative aviation fuel demand in the form of aviation biofuel. The report, released last month, suggests that to incentivise farmers to invest in the cultivation of such crops, the aviation industry and fuel suppliers should sign long-term offtake agreements to mitigate
5.7% Expected annual compound growth in courier market  between now and 2022.
the risks related to their production.  “Annual energy crops could be planted on degraded land (such as rehabilitated of mining land) and could replace other industrial crops in decline. An example would be replacing tobacco crops for the cigarette industry with Solaris tobacco which is a tested feedstock for biofuel,” explained BoleRentel. She added that because shipping feedstock long distances could reduce the GHG savings, the finished product should ideally be processed locally. There is already a biofuel production project under way – dubbed Project Solaris – in South Africa, with Boeing having teamed up with  South African Airways (SAA) to produce sustainable aviation biofuel from a new type of tobacco plant called solaris.