Switch to biofuels delayed by two years in Kenya

Kenya Biofuels

Kenya's switch to a greener energy source is expected to be delayed by two years according to the government agency dealing with the project.

Guidelines for the blending of petrol and ethanol were scheduled to be published on Monday, but are not ready leaving the distillers without the technical capacity to undertake the assignment, the National Biofuels Sub-Committee says.

The guidelines will not be ready for at least three months, according to Dr. Benard Muok who added, "The standards that were in use in the 1970s are obsolete and new ones needed to have been formulated. But this is yet to happen."

Time to adjust

All Africa reports that the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), the national standards custodian, recently published the draft guidelines and the public will be sending comments until March 4, three days after the date the government set for the blending to take effect.

"This automatically means that the country cannot start running on biofuels; otherwise, what standards would we be applying?" asked Muok.

"The Ministry of Energy needs to be realistic because the March 1 deadline is not possible. Such a change needs not a week but adequate time so that the industry adjusts."

With only three days before the deadline set by the government of March 1 expires, the sub-committee said the country was not in a position to begin using biofuels.

Driving the biofuels programme

Aside from the delay in publishing the new standards for ethanol production the distillers will have to deal with the logistics of switching to producing power alcohol - the chemical required for blending.

The western regions of Kenya have often been thought to have the largest potential for clean energy development because of its higher quality of infrastructure and availability of sugarcane which will be the main feedstock.

But Kenya's central and coastal regions have also been identified as having potential for production of at least 11 feed-stocks like jatropha, croton, sugar cane, cotton, sunflower, and canola.

Any new investors venturing into Kenya will be channeled towards putting cash into ethanol production in order to drive the biofuels programme.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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