Biofuel Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa: Raising food yields, reducing food waste and utilising residues

Substantial resource potential exists to sustainably expand supplies of liquid biofuels in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper focuses on the potential in Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Volumes of biofuel feedstock can be expanded through more systematic collection of agricultural residues, as well as through planting of sugarcane, other grasses and trees on land made available through more intensive cultivation of croplands and reduced waste and losses in the food chain. With a mix of conventional technologies using sugar- or starch-based feedstocks and advanced processes using lignocellulosic feedstocks that are being demonstrated at commercial scale (IRENA, 2016a), liquid biofuels could displace most petroleum-based transport fuel in the five countries considered as a group.