Power challenge is said to be hindering Nigeria’s development, and solution seems not to be in sight, what do you have to say about that?
Power supply in Nigeria is very dismal. 4,000 megawatts for about 160 million people gives you just 25 watts per head. In developed countries, it is 1,000 watts per head. In developing countries like Egypt it’s 270, South Africa is about 400. So, ours is so low that it cannot encourage industrialisation which would allow job creation.
On the aspect of transport fuel, we are now at the mercy of the fuel subsidy May fair where they often introduce artificial scarcity. Though I know the government is up to the task, but we have to revive all our refineries. Second, we have to start producing hydro power from inland basins. We shouldn’t concentrate on the Niger Delta basins.
The Bida, Chad and Sokoto river basins all have oil. This has been proven since. Chad and Niger Republic are already taking out crude oil and gas from the Chad basin. A refinery in Zindar is already producing some of the fuel we consume in Nigeria. Therefore, there is need to develop the inland basins so that we can produce fuel in the northern part of the country to balance the fuel supply in the country.
The refinery in Kaduna can be supplied by the inland basins in the North. Mini refineries should be established. The one in Niger was built in less than one year by Chinese, which was just 10,000 barrel per day. If you have about ten of these types of refineries, it is better than having 100,000 barrel per day because if it breaks down, all the supply would stop.
On the fossil fuels, there is need for us to develop biofuels. We have mentioned several times that the fossil fuel would finish one day, so there is need for us to plan for our future where we have to rely on renewable fuels. Biofuels are the best options for renewable fuels for now. Biodiesel and bioethanol are the major ones that we can use.
Researches on biodiesel are already on. On Bioethanol, we need to work in tandem with our sugarcane processing companies so that the molasses produced can be converted into bioethanol. NARICT has a number of technologies in this area. We need to develop our indigenous technologies.
What Brazil did, I think, is the best model for Nigeria. Brazil is now number one bioethanol producer. They developed indigenous technology instead of importing. They have about 300 refineries working on bioethanol that are working on molasses. This is why Brazil is number one bioethanol and sugar producer in the world.
A lot of sugar that we consume in Nigeria is from Brazil, and it is Brazilian sugar that brought the price of sugar down all over the world. They got to that level because they were producing it all along with bioethanol.
I think there is need to use the correct benchmarks and to copy other countries, and Brazil and India would be appropriate for us to copy on biofuel industry.
What is the relevance of hydro power in addressing Nigeria’s power and fuel crisis?
Hydro power is also a renewable source. Nigeria has capacity for almost 15,000 megawatts. Mambila is one of those. Hydro power is the cheapest source of electricity. It is cheaper than oil, coal and gas power plants. This is because it is based on natural damming of water. You dam the water and allow it to flow by gravity into the turbines. The turbines would be rotated and you have your electricity. So, it is the cheapest source of electricity in the world and Nigeria has great potentials for that.
Every state in Nigeria has its hydro power potentials. Wherever you have a mini dam, you can place a mini hydro power plant so that it can generate 10 or 20 megawatts that can be enough for that particular area. By that arrangement, you can create a mini grid for states and localities or industrial hub.
It is unfortunate that we are not harnessing our hydro power potentials. The Mambila project has been on since Obasanjo’s time. So, it is high time for government to concentrate on our hydro power if not for anything but for the fact that it is the cheapest and it can distribute the country’s power to every nook and cranny, and we may not need the national grid that often breaks down and causes a lot of problems.
Government should create these grids and power them with solar and hydro energy so that we can solve our power problems; so that employment would be created because industries can come back on stream.
Academics like you are often accused of being good in offering theoretical solutions to problems that are not feasible to implement…
Well, I think if we are to translate what I have said into practice, there is need for the setting up of task force on power. Even if that is the only agenda that this government would deliver; I think it would be a great achievement, because power is the key to the revival of the economy and all other aspects of our lives.
With the task force, we will be able to diversify from thermal powered by gas, because the gas is not even available. There are reports, but I don’t know how true they are, that there are some thermal power plants that were completed but there is no gas to power them. This is ridiculous because Nigeria is supplying gas to some of our neighbours through the West African gas pipelines; why should we fail to supply for our own use?
That is not even the point; we need to diversify. Nigeria has one of the largest potentials of solar power all over the world. In 1985, it was estimated that if 0.1 per cent of solar radiation falling on the Nigerian land mass is converted at one per cent efficiency, it would meet our total energy requirement.
The cost of solar energy has come down. It is now N1 billion for each megawatt. The $20 billion that were spent on NEPA in the past years could have given us 4,000 megawatts of solar power. We have spent so much money without commensurate result. If we can put a good chunk of money on solar power plants across the country, every state can have solar power plants. Nigeria may say she doesn’t have money to invest, but there are countries that are ready to support. Nigeria should get closer to China. China is now the number one economy in the world. They took over from United States in April this year.
China is ready to come and build power plants without Nigeria putting a kobo, and then pay them over a period of time with our crude oil. This was a policy then General Buhari utilised when he took over in 1983 and it worked very well for the country. Chinese are building power plants across African countries using hydro power, because of their experiences.
The refinery in Niger Republic was built by the Chinese. The Chinese are ready to assist developing countries to bring them up. We need to seize this opportunity, especially now that there is a lot of goodwill for Nigeria across the world.
Researchers like you often talk of the possible disappearance of crude oil in the next 30 to 50 years, have you started looking for alternative?
Biofuel is one of them. In biofuel, you have biodiesel and bioethanol. There are new technologies that are coming up on providing transport without using fuel, like the electric vehicles that use only electricity. But these technologies are not matured to reach the market.
Crude oil may remain with us for the next 30 to 50 years. Beyond that period, it would be expensive to be produced. Another fuel that is going to make a comeback is coal. Coal has been the fuel for the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
There is now what they call clean coal technologies that are emerging. In this technology, you take coal and gasify it and convert the product of your gasification into fuels, petrochemicals, and several other products. Whatever you can do with natural gas, you can do it with coal after gasification. Fortunately, in Nigeria we have a lot of coal.
Ashaka Cement Company is now using coal as fuel instead of heavy oil from the refineries. There is also need for government to look into developing our coal reserve so that we can use them for power generation using new coal clean technologies, which would not pollute the environment. These would be some of the alternatives for crude oil in the long run.
There were attempts in the past to be converting waste into power, how viable was that initiative?
We have been able to convert tyres into oil, but we did it in collaboration with a private sector in Katsina. We always prefer to work with the private sector, because whatever technology we develop, the private sector would take it to commercialise.
We have started a project on conversion of waste into liquid fuels, which unfortunately we couldn’t get support for. The Canadians also refused us to go there to do some of the designs. However, we were able to discover that with simple pyrolysis, we can produce crude oil, which has been fractionated here in NARICT.
We have been able to get kerosene out of disused tyres, which are even polluting the environment. Some local people are even burning them to get wires, which is pollution to the environment. We have a technology for converting those tyres into crude pyrolysis oil, which can be fractionated to get kerosene, petrol, diesel, heavy oil and even something that looks like coal tar. Beside that, you also produce carbon black that can be converted to activate carbon. You can produce wires that can be taken to rolling mills.
These are technologies that we hope government can give us funding to perfect. The gentleman in Katsina has already put up a processing plant, but he brought all his equipment from China.
Therefore, there is need to encourage this conversion of waste into fuels. This can be another backup. The energy basket has to contain different sources not only crude oil or biofuels, you need to bring all the major sources.
