11. New Conversion Technologies for Liquid Biofuels Production in Africa

On the longer term, the production of second generation biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass is expected to become economically competitive with gasoline and diesel. A pre-requisite is that several technological hurdles will be overcome and that a large, stable supply of lignocellulosic biomass will be guaranteed. Studies have shown that Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to contribute significantly to the global supply of biomass energy derived from lignocellulosic resources. Due to the high investment costs of establishing large-scale second generation biofuel processing plants, the production and export of pre-treated biomass (e.g. pellets) to industrialised countries is a potentially interesting short-term option. An illustrated example is the production of lignocellulosic biomass in Mozambique which has the capacity to annually contribute up to 2% of global energy supply in the form of bioenergy under a strict sustainability framework. However, rationalisation in agriculture will be essential for realising this potential and efficient logistics are needed to ensure competitive biomass supply.