Egyptian Youth Turns Plastic Waste into Fuel

The challenge of finding alternate fuel sources is capturing the imagination of innovators across the global South. As the world’s population increases – it recently reached 7 billion (UN) – and the number of people seeking a better life grows in turn, the energy demands on the planet are pushing up competition for existing conventional fuel sources.

The modern lifestyle that many aspire to requires energy, whether it’s using electronic products which consume large quantities of electricity, driving personal vehicles or living in homes that are artificially heated and cooled.

This energy hunger has opened up a whole new market demand that needs to be met. The scale of this market is enormous, but the solutions are ultimately limited only by people’s imaginations. An award-winning Egyptian teenage scientist is capturing attention for the imaginative solution of turning waste plastic into biofuel, sparking interest in the creation of a whole new source of wealth for her country.

Sixteen-year-old Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad (http://tinyurl.com/dysemjg) has found a new way to take waste plastic and break it down into fuel. She has discovered aluminosilicate minerals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminosilicate) – which contain aluminium, silicon and oxygen and are found in clays – can break down the polymers that make up plastic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer) to produce the gases methane, propane and ethane, all of which can be turned into ethanol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol), which is useful as a biofuel.

According to Inhabitat (inhabitat.com), a website dedicated to “green design, innovation, and the future of clean technology,” her solution could turn the country’s annual consumption of 1 million tonnes of plastic into a year’s supply of biofuel worth US $78 million.

Clever innovators are sitting on a goldmine if they can come up with renewable energy solutions. The U.S. Army alone is looking to spend US $7 billion on renewable energy sources and is accepting bids from the private sector to meet its needs (http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/08/08/u-s-army-opens-bids-to-buy-7-billionin-renewable-energy/). The army is looking to sign contracts stretching up to 30 years for buying electricity generated by solar, wind, geothermal and biomass projects.

The options are numerous for renewable energy – from solar power to wind power to algae as a source of biofuels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel). The challenge is to find a fuel source that is plentiful, renewable, and crucially, doesn’t harm other needs.

Using biofuel as a replacement for conventional petroleum-based fuels like gasoline and diesel appears to be an attractive solution, but it can lead to other problems. Some people are using used cooking oils to convert into biodiesels, but sometimes there is not enough used cooking oil to meet demand. In short, a constant supply source is required to meet ever-increasing energy demand.

A famous example of where the use of renewable plant-based fuel sources can go wrong is the case of corn. The widespread use of corn as a source for biofuels – rather than for animal feed or human food – has led to accusations this is contributing to the global food crisis. The current drought in the United States is damaging corn crops and only making this problem more acute. The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of corn (US Department of Agriculture) and much of it is used as livestock feed around the world.

Faiad’s solution is appealing because the fuel does not come from biomass – derived from plant matter – but turns waste plastic into the raw material for biofuel.

Plastic waste is a common byproduct of modern life. Plastic is used extensively in packaging, bottles, bags and electronic products. It fills up landfill sites and is a blight on the landscape in many countries. It is also a product made from petrochemicals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic), the very source of conventional fuel used by most of the world’s vehicles.

Breaking down waste plastic from bottles, packaging and other products into what is called ‘biofuel feedstock’ – the substance necessary to start the creation of biofuel – requires a means to turn the plastic into fuel.

According to Green Prophet (greenprophet.com), Faiad believes her technological breakthrough “can provide an economically efficient method for production of hydrocarbon fuel namely: cracked naphtha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_naphtha) of about 40,000 tons per year and hydrocarbon gases of about 138,000 tons per year equivalent to US $78 million.”

This could be a big economic boost to Egypt’s economy, simultaneously reducing dependence on petroleum-based fuels and creating a new source of income. Egypt’s economy has been hit hard since the start of the Arab Spring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring). The number of tourists fell 33 per cent in 2011 and revenue dropped by US $3.7 billion from 2010 (Egyptian Tourism Minister). In 2009 about 12.5 million tourists visited Egypt, bringing revenue of US $10.8 billion. The tourism sector is one of the country’s top sources of foreign revenue, accounting for more than 11 per cent of GDP, and offers jobs in a country beset by high unemployment – for Egypt, tourism makes up 11 per cent of its GDP (gross domestic product) (Reuters).

Faiad’s innovation has not gone unnoticed. She received the European Fusion Development Agreement award (http://www.efda.org/) at the 2011 23rd European Union Contest for Young Scientists (http://ec.europa.eu/research/youngscientists/index_en.cfm). She is also receiving interest from the Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute (http://www.epri.sci.eg/), according to Inhabitat.

Ambitious Faiad is also seeking to take ownership of her innovation by getting a patent from the Egyptian Patent Office (http://www.egypo.gov.eg/english/default.htm).

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: August 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Shopping and Flying in Africa’s Boom Towns

As economies across Africa grow, the continent still has a long way to go to create infrastructure to match people’s rising expectations of what a modern, prosperous life looks like.

Africa’s current economic growth has mainly been driven by commodities and oil and gas exports. Critics say this boom has failed to bring tangible benefits to many of Africa’s poor, who feel left out of the prosperity.

Trade has been flourishing not only because of exports to traditional markets in Europe and North America but also because of explosive growth in trade and investment between China and Africa.

Two trends now underway are set to transform people’s wealth and living standards despite the many obstacles caused by the inequalities of current economic growth. The first is the rise and rise of retail shopping options

looking to meet a strong appetite for consumer goods. And the second is the expansion of flying options on a continent notorious for its poor air links. Increasing investment in retail and flight networks will be a source of jobs, careers and wealth for the coming decade.

The aviation sector supports 6.7 million jobs on the continent, according to TradeMark Southern Africa (http://www.trademarksa.org), and makes a US $67.8 billion contribution to Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP).

But the woeful state of Africa’s air networks means that it is often cheaper for people to fly to other parts of Africa via European airports. And Africa has a long way to go to match air safety standards found elsewhere: there was one accident for every 305,000 flights involving Western-built jets in Africa last year (IATA) – nine times the global average.

But Africa is now receiving the attention of the global airline industry. The Abuja Declaration (http://nigerianaviationnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/aviation-safety-in-africa-abuja.html) aims to bring the African accident rate in line with the global average by 2015. And it is hoped the added competition and introduction of more global players will also raise standards and make flying in Africa safer, more convenient and cheaper.

The experience of Europe and North America shows that increased air traffic brings a boost to economic growth.

With more frequent, safer and more reliable air routes, business people will be able to move around and strike deals, tourists can get around and traders can cross borders without the hassle of navigating poor road networks.

Airlines are lining up to compete on improving air links in Africa to capitalize on rising incomes and economic dynamism.

The competition to serve the air passengers has heated up with the announcement of numerous new airlines, as well as well-established global carriers making plans to expand routes across Africa. Kenya Airways (http://www.kenya-airways.com/) has pledged to reach all of Africa’s countries by 2017 while also launching its own budget airline called Jambo Jet (http://www.ventures-africa.com/2012/06/kenya-airways-tolaunch-low-cost-airline-as-it-prepares-for-competition/).

State-owned South African Airways (SAA) (http://www.flysaa.com/gb/en/) is also starting to expand its network to include every capital city in Africa. SAA will start by adding flights to Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo, making it able to serve 26 African destinations. In the short term, it is doing this by halting flights between Cape Town and London, leaving that route to Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.

Operating out of bases in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Angola, a new African discount airline, FastJet (http://www.fastjet.com/) – with EasyJet (http://www.easyjet.com/en) founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou as its backer – is taking over Fly540 (http://www.fly540.com/) and adding 15 leased Airbus aircraft. It will launch flights to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Angola. According to Kenya’s Nation newspaper, the plan is to replicate the success of EasyJet connecting Europe and North Africa with cheap flights in sub-Saharan Africa.

Analysts believe the entry of an aggressive and experienced player like Haji-Ioannou will shake up competition within African aviation.

Other global players lining up to expand in Africa include Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Korea Air, which has already started flying between South Korea and Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. This is being seen as a boost to the trade in electronics goods between the two countries.

The added excitement in the African air industry has also prompted Air Uganda (http://www.air-uganda.com/) and RwandaAir (http://www.rwandair.com/) to increase their destinations. Qatar Airways (http://www.qatarairways.com/uk/en/homepage.page) will start flying in November 2012 to Maputo, Mozambique three times a week, increasing to 20 the number of destinations the airline serves, according to the Nation.

And while Emirates has a 41 per cent share of the African market, African player Ethiopian Airlines (http://www.flyethiopian.com/en/default.aspx) ambitiously wants to become Africa’s largest airline by 2025.

For shoppers, West Africa is experiencing a boom in new retail spaces being developed, according to a report from Euromonitor International (http://www.euromonitor.com) (http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/ghana-%E2%80%93-africas-new-retail-hotspot/18544/). The advantages of creating and developing modern retail spaces are numerous: hygienic shopping environments with greater safety and security attract multinational and global brands, which tend to create lots of long-term jobs.

Euromonitor International has identified Ghana as the next hotspot for retailers. The country is seen to have the right business environment in place that is attractive to foreign investors. It also has the right mix of political stability, cultural tolerance and rising prosperity.

The country is now being seen as the gateway to West Africa’s market of 250 million consumers. Ghana is able to leverage its position as a gateway into landlocked nations and on its strong ties with English-speaking powerhouses like Britain and the United States.

On top of these strategic advantages, the country has focused on upgrading retail spaces in the capital, Accra. The Accra Mall (http://www.accramall.com/), opened in 2007, is considered the most modern shopping mall in Ghana.

Euromonitor found Ghana’s retail industry grew by 14 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

Euromonitor found companies like multinational Unilever and PZ Cussons believed basing their operations in Ghana was a big advantage.

“The presence of such manufacturers provides a good opportunity for retailers as they can source these manufacturers’ products cheaper locally rather than importing them,” it said.

Euromonitor identified three other African countries as potential retail marketplaces. This includes Zambia, a potential agribusiness powerhouse. It is already developing a strong reputation in beef through its Zambeef (http://www.zambeefplc.com/) operation. South African companies have done well in Zambia, including Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Mr Price and the Foschini Group. Much of the action is around the capital, Lusaka.

Rwanda is known for its ease of doing business and there is activity going on in residential areas, roads, hotels, offices and retail spaces. The capital, Kigali, has a new modern, shopping mall, The Union Trade Centre, with a 24-hour store.

Angola has been benefiting from peace since the end of its civil war in 2002. Foreign companies have been attracted to Angola from South Africa, Portugal and Brazil. The Belas Shopping Mall (http://belasshopping.com/website/) opened in 2007 in the capital, Luanda, followed by the Ginga Shopping Mall on the city’s outskirts in 2011.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: August 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Teenager Uses Technology to Protect Livestock from Lions

In Kenya, a teenage Maasai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people) inventor has developed a way to chase lions away from livestock that doesn’t harm the lions. It is a common practice to kill lions when they threaten or kill livestock, and this has led to a precipitous drop in the local lion population at Nairobi National Park (http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/NANP.html/), near the country’s capital, Nairobi. Lions are a significant tourist attraction for Kenya and the population decline is a threat to the future of the tourist industry.

Trying to find the right balance between livestock and wild animals is a problem across the global South. As populations rise, and the number of animals kept for domestic food markets increases, so does conflict between farmers and predatory wild animals looking for an easy meal. And there is no more tempting easy meal than domesticated animals tamed and kept in herds.

According to Reuters, 13-year-old Richard Turere has developed a system of flashing lights to scare off lions at night. The LED (light-emitting diode) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode) bulbs were gathered from broken flashlights. Turere then wired them to a solar-powered car battery used to power the family’s TV.

Turere has placed the lights on poles surrounding the enclosure where the cattle stay at night.

“Lions were eating our cattle at night, which made me very annoyed,” he told Reuters. “And I thought that I have to come up with an idea of making bulbs. Because I knew that the lions were afraid of something moving.

“When someone wakes up at night and moves with a torch, they are afraid. So I made the bulbs which flash at night and keep away lions.”

Nairobi National Park is wild and unfenced, leaving lions free to wander on to farmland. Tragically for the lions, increasing numbers are being killed by farmers protecting herds. Conservationists say Kenya’s lion population has plummeted from 15,000 to just 2,000 in a decade. Since October 2011, Wildlife Direct (http://wildlifedirect.org/) has documented 169 killings of livestock by lions in the location near Turere’s farm.

Kenya depends heavily on tourism to the national parks where people want to see lions. Kenya has been enjoying significant growth in tourism and has the goal of reaching 2 million international tourists in 2012 (Kenyan Ministry of Tourism). Earnings from international tourism are the second largest source of foreign exchange for the country and the services sector – 63 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) – is dominated by tourism (Brand Kenya). So-called ‘photo safaris’ to the country’s national parks and game preserves are the main attraction for international tourists.

But farmers need to have their herds protected since livestock are a critical income source for them, as well as a food source for the country. Cattle herding has long been an important income source and livelihood for the Maasai people.

According to conservationist Dr. Paula Kahumbu, executive director of Wildlife Direct, other herding families would like Richard to set up the light system on their farms too.

Since Richard installed the lights, his family has not lost any cattle to lions. This bright idea has also dramatically altered Turere’s life. The attention he has received for the invention has led to him being funded by local environment groups to attend a prestigious private school, Brookhouse International School (http://www.brookhouse.ac.ke/) in Nairobi. Things are truly looking bright for Turere!

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: August 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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African Innovation Eco-system Taking Shape

How to increase the rate of innovation in Africa? And specifically, innovation that actually improves people’s lives and reduces poverty. It is a hard question to answer, but some are putting in place the building blocks of a 21st century innovation culture by riding the information technology revolution as it rolls across Africa.

The transformative story of mobile phones in Africa has captured the attention of the world. Technologies like mobile phone payment systems developed in Africa are now being rolled out around the globe.

But there is more to come as undersea cables increase the communications links between African nations and the rest of the world. New undersea cables including TEAMs, Seacom and Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) (eassy.org) are vastly increasing the continent’s Internet capacity and bandwidth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_%28computing%29).

These communications links will revolutionize the type and scale of innovation that can happen in Africa.

As websites like AfriGadget (afrigadget.com) amply prove, there is already an entrenched do-it-yourself innovation culture hard-wired into daily life on the continent. While impressively resourceful and able to make the most of often very little, this innovation culture is often confined to a narrow geographical area. And this is the difference the new information technologies will make: They will allow this energetic and resourceful innovators’ culture to develop businesses and business models that can reach beyond narrow geographical parameters.

New technologies will also accelerate the spread of new ideas and solutions.

Across the continent, ways and means are being stitched together that enable people to transcend borders and old divisions and obstacles to connect with like-minded collaborators, seek out funding and take ideas from dreams to schemes and eventually to continent- and world-straddling levels.

According to the Deloitte 2011 East Africa Private Equity Confidence Survey: Promising 2012, “Many investors see East Africa’s strong growth potential as a driver of better investment performance than in South Africa: This is a huge shift in private equity attitudes toward Africa, which have been historically focused on South Africa. East African investment potential is seen as roughly on par with West Africa, where similar growth dynamics are at play.”

Identifying the elements that are making this innovation culture flourish came under analysis in a recent post on the Afrinnovator website (afrinnovator.com). Afrinnovator is dedicated to “telling the stories of African startups, African innovation, African made technology, African tech entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.”

While it is well known that new infrastructure, better governance, new policies, and new services like mobile phones and mobile money have made a big difference in shifting perceptions of Africa from despair to optimism, Afrinnovator found there were other key ingredients to this innovation renaissance.

Afrinnovator argues there are four elements that have come together to change circumstances for innovators on the continent: education, mentoring and incubators, funding, and showcase events.

Afrinnovator found education was critical to the quality of emerging technological innovations. Information and communication technology (ICT) education has moved from just computer science courses to a vast array of options, from bachelors degrees to masters programmes.

For mentoring and incubators, Afrinnovator found hubs and incubators are providing places for young educated people to go to and get down to work.

Examples include iHub (http://ihub.co.ke/pages/home.php), mLab East Africa (http://mlab.co.ke/pages/home.php), ccHub (Co-Creation Hub Nigeria) (http://cchubnigeria.com/about-cchub/), Lusaka, Zambia’s Bongohive (bongohive.com), iLab Africa (http://ilabafrica.ac.ke/) NaiLab (http://nailab.co.ke/) iBid Labs (http://ibidlabs.com/) and Uganda’s HiveColab (http://hivecolab.org/), among others. These places offer like-minded fellowship and access to mentors to take them on the journey from “idea to viable profitable business.”

According to Business Daily Africa, “There are more than 3,000 software developers who have come up with both mobile and personal computer-based software applications that are changing lives across the continent.”

A transformation in funding access has seen a renaissance in new thinking that is transforming tech start-ups into viable businesses. Kenya has the Kenya ICT Board (http://www.ict.go.ke/) and it awards US $50,000 through its Tandaa grant programme (https://sites.google.com/a/ict.go.ke/tandaa/).

Because of this enthusiastic local support, the World Bank is now committing a US $55 million grant targeting Kenya’s technology innovators to be distributed through the Kenya ICT Board.

East Africa also saw 16 new investor funds launch in 2011 alone. They include early-stage investor funds like eVentures Fund Africa (eVA) (http://www.eva-fund.com/), which calls itself “the first venture capital firm investing in African SME’s active in digital media.” Another is Kenya-based 88mph (http://www.humanipo.com/88mph), with its “focus on startups targeting the East African mobile and web market.”

In Kenya, the World Bank money will be used to help technology developers bring to market simple solutions in health and education.

According to the World Bank (http://tinyurl.com/cm3g2rf), “Kenya has put in place the second-fastest broadband on the continent (after Ghana), which has reduced the wholesale internet capacity prices by over 90% and increased internet penetration from 3% to 37% of the population in the past decade. Today, about 90% of Kenyan adults have or have the use of a mobile phone.”

And the final game-changer, according to Afrinnovator, is “showcase events.”

These events give investors and potential partners the opportunity to meet start-ups and explore their new ideas.

Examples include DEMO (http://www.demo.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=29414&) – which connects the idea people with the money people – and Pivot East in East Africa (http://pivoteast.com/). Pivot East provides 25 technology entrepreneurs with the opportunity to make a pitch in front of investors. DEMO is working with USAID, Microsoft, Nokia and others to launch DEMO Africa in Nairobi, Kenya from 21 to 22 October 2012.

Afrinnovator concludes: “This is the last virgin tech landscape left on the planet. The best time to become a player in the African technology innovation ecosystem is now.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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African Fuel Pioneer Uses Crisis to Innovate

Crisis, as the old saying goes, is also a window of opportunity. And there is one African entrepreneur who knows this better than most. Daniel Mugenga has been on a journey of innovation that has led him to become a pioneer in the emerging new field of algae technologies. The story of how he got there is a testament to the power of using business to both solve problems and make profits.

Kenyan entrepreneur Daniel Mugenga has found a solution to the problem of high fuel costs for the transport sector in his country. He has been making money from turning waste cooking oil and inedible vegetable oil into biodiesel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel). He then discovered that he could boost his production of biodiesel by using marine algae as a source for oil.

According to the body that represents the algae fuel industry, Oilgae (oilgae.com), algae are “plant-like organisms that are usually photosynthetic and aquatic, but do not have true roots, stems, leaves, vascular tissue and have simple reproductive structures. They are distributed worldwide in the sea, in freshwater and in wastewater. Most are microscopic, but some are quite large, e.g. some marine seaweeds that can exceed 50 m in length.”

The U.S. Department of Energy has been investigating algae as a fuel source since 1978, and it is being investigated as a potentially transformative fuel source around the world. His business, Pure Fuels Ltd. (http://www.purefuels.co.ke/), is currently seeking venture capital funding for expansion and innovation. Pure Fuels is “a commercial producer of biodiesel and also manufactures biodiesel processors, which we sell to budding entrepreneurs,” says Mugenga.

The Pure Fuels website educates readers on biodiesel as well as offering opportunities for investors and news updates. Pure Fuels was registered as a business in Kenya in 2010.

The business was born out of crisis: in 2008 there were frequent fuel shortages in Kenya and prices were volatile. That was bad news for Daniel Mugenga’s job, working for a transport company with a fleet of trucks. Rising or volatile fuel prices can destroy businesses in areas like trucking, where the biggest expense is fuel.

Mugenga began to do research into fuel alternatives in the crisis and came upon biodiesel. He then set about training in how to produce biodiesel. A period of testing, trials and research ensued between 2008 and 2010, which enabled Pure Fuels to build confidence they had something that was high  quality. The company started producing 120,000 litres of biodiesel in 2010 and increased production to 360,000 litres in 2011 and 700,000 so far in 2012. In 2011, Pure Fuels had revenue of US $230,000 from selling biodiesel.

“We started off using jatropha oil, but when its price went up it was no longer profitable,” Mugenga told the VC4Africa website blog. “Having invested in the machinery, we switched to the next quickest alternative which is used cooking oil. We source it from several of the tourist hotels along the Kenyan coast.”

Turning to cooking oil for biodiesel at first was a good idea. The company was able to get enough waste cooking oil from Kenya hotels and tourist resorts to meet demand. But as demand rose, the thorny problem of Kenya’s tourism business being seasonal arose.

“For about five months of the year, many hotels in Mombasa temporarily shut down or operate at lower capacity. Of course this is affecting the amount of waste cooking oil,” Mugenga said. This is where algae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae) comes in.

Pure Fuels found a biotechnologist in Kenya to help develop a solution using algae as a source for fuel. While the company is keeping details of its innovation secret, it is currently hunting for investors to help increase the quantity of biodiesel it can make – and in turn, revenues.

Investor funds would be used to import non-edible vegetable oil and also to continue the company’s work on extracting oil from marine algae.

Pure Fuels make a bold statement on algae fuel development: it “may actually be Kenya’s next cash crop.”

Pure Fuels sells several products: there is the biodiesel itself, as well as a processing machine called the GXP-200, which can turn customers into biodiesel manufacturers themselves. The company also builds large, industrial-scale processors that can produce between 1,000 litres and 5,000 litres a day.

Pure Fuels currently sells fuel to truck, bus and tuk-tuk companies, and also operates biofuel stations.

The firm has patented its biodiesel and makes all its fuel go through seven quality checks for purity. An in-house laboratory ensures adherence to international standards, and the company is certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (http://www.kebs.org/).

Mugenga is a passionate advocate of biodiesel’s advantages: he believes it is cheaper, and better for engines and for the environment. He admits it does have a disadvantage: it gels below 13 degrees Celsius and must be mixed 50-50 with conventional diesel to stay fluid.

Pure Fuels encourages others to use biofuels for business, throwing in a home training kit with the biodiesel processors it manufactures and sells, complete with DVDs, manuals and a business plan. The GXP-200 biodiesel processor was developed after years of experience, and Pure Fuels hopes it will be bought by people who then set up businesses – especially youth, women and the disabled. As a further incentive, Pure Fuels promises to buy the biodiesel produced. The GXP-200 was recently awarded “Most Innovative Product 2012″ at a small and medium business entrepreneurs event in Nairobi.

In Israel, there are a number of pioneers working on further developing algae as a biofuel source too. Isaac Berzin of Seambiotic (seambiotic.com) sees algae as a good source for biofuel because it does not compete with food crops like other biofuel sources (sugar, potatoes, corn etc.). Algae is among a group of so-called second-generation biofuels that includes jatropha, wood and castor plants.

The disadvantage of plant-based fuel sources is they need arable land and water. This seriously holds back their ability to meet the world’s demand for fuel since they would just take up too much land and water. Algae takes up less space and produces a higher yield per acre than conventional crops.

Seambiotic makes marine microalgae using the CO2 from electric power plant flue gas. It pioneered making large quantities of fuel algae in the United States, creating the first gallons of bio-diesel and bio-ethanol from marine microalgae.

Seambiotic is also working on a US $10 million commercial microalgae farm in China, partnering with China Guodian (http://www.cgdc.com.cn/), one of the country’s largest power companies. Another Israeli company in this field is UniVerve (http://www.univervebiofuel.com/). Its CEO, Ohad Zuckerman, runs the10-person company in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is developing a new biofuel from a special strain of algae that can grow quickly in a wider range of temperatures.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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