Bio-fuels bull

GENERAL excitement in South Africa bio-fuels tends to cover the subject in a fog of wishful thinking. Given the general belief that selling fuel is as complicated as selling rice or beans and we have a recipe for disaster.

The bio-fuels fairy story goes like this: Alcohol can be made from maize. We grow a lot of maize. Ergo, we can make a lot of alcohol. Alcohol can be added to petrol. Petrol comes mainly from imported crude oil. Since anything imported is bad because it costs dollars/pounds, yen and so on, we can save lots of money by growing our own fuel.

Voodoo Economics Like all back-of-cigarette-box economic calculations, this is simple and obvious enough. Reality is not. Quite apart from the fact that people eat maize meal and feeding people is more important than cheaper fuel -- assuming this thing can work economically -- we forget that drought is a regular feature of South African agriculture. The chances of dependable harvests year after year are slim. Ask any farmer. So, if it all works, we might have to import maize to feed our people while we grow maize to drive our cars. What a great idea!

But brush that all aside for a moment and look at the upside of the idea. Think of all the emerging small farmers in South Africa (we assume most are black ) who will now grow maize/ canola/jojoba/ other plants and sell it to ethanol distillers set up around the country. Nothing wrong with that says our man in the bar with the cigarette box and a ball point pen.

Hmm…. Will small farmers deliver maize to the alcohol distillers? How will they deliver? In whose tankers? How will they be paid? What will they be paid? Will they deliver once, get paid, get bored and then decide to "rest" for a while? This is Africa, remember. Small scale peasant farmers tend not to keep to industrial schedules. Some even say we do not have peasant farmers -- just large numbers of rural unemployed workers wanting nothing more than to abandon the hard grind of agriculture.

OK, it is a cynical view. Let's assume regular deliveries in sufficient quantity are made to the distillers. They can produce alcohol with the maize they get from small scale (black) farmers. What kind of alcohol will they produce? Will it be pure, 100 per cent proof alcohol? Or will it vary in quality? Who will collect it and take it to the place where it will be blended into petrol? Are there enough road tankers to do this job? Will these tankers be clean enough so that what leaves the distillery as 100 per cent proof, gets to the blending plant in the same condition? (Alcohol tends to absorb water from the air).

Does this mean we only hope the blenders will ensure that only the best gets put into petrol. Any BMW drivers out there still feeling confident?

Then how is the alcohol going to be added to petrol? Some say it is a simple process. "Splash blending" has been suggested. This means bunging in the alcohol at a depot before the regular petrol gets taken to the service station.

I wonder what that means for the guarantee on a new Beemer.