Biodiesel to offer best energy solution to Uganda’s economy

A research into biodiesel will offer the best natural solution to current energy and environmental challenges. The study by a master’s student Benjamin Mpeirwe may widely answer Uganda’s energy supply constraint and create employment especially among the rural under class.

But the success of this project, the first of its kind has its ugly side that mirrors into several of such students struggling with research projects in energy.

A visit at Makerere Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation was an eye opener. If it was not the good will of foreign organisations, no masters’ student would complete a research project because none of them can afford it.
Mpeirwe, now a finalist at faculty of technology almost failed to complete his bio-diesel project.

He wrote one proposal after another to win favour with a private company that injected about Shs60 million in a project he will defend next week.

High research cost
He says this project will be relevant to the economy by enabling Ugandans in rural areas gain financially as they can participate in the growth of Jatropha Curcas a wonder plant locally referred to as Ebiroowa.

“The cost of this research was beyond my reach but I was lucky to find a sponsor who also used my project to test his equipment,” Mpeire said in an interview last week.

Now his project, if supported by a government policy on bio diesel, can reduce dependency on diesel imports which means less outflow of money from the economy.
He said there is also the benefit of locally producing glycerin (a bi-product of the biodiesel production process), which is useful for synthesis of medicines and cosmetics.

For Uganda, bio-diesel production, if taken to commercial level can save a capital outflow estimated at $230m spent on importing over 400,000,000 litres of diesel per annum.

Renewable energy
The current energy policy advocates increased research and use of modern renewable energy sources which it expects to increase from the current four per cent to 61 per cent of the total energy consumption by 2017. In the policy, the government proposes a law to have fossil fuel companies blend petroleum with up to 20 per cent biofuels.

The Makerere research project has so far been proved to run any diesel engine and so it can be used mainly in the transport sector and power generation.
Already the first biodiesel-powered bus in Africa made its maiden trip from Kigali to Bujumbura early this year and this may soon happen in Uganda.
Several local companies including the Madhvani and Mukwano group, produce their own bio diesel.

No student support
Dr Izael Da silva, the director at Makerere centre for research in energy and energy conservation, said they have so many research ideas from students but they never take off.

Reason, the university has no funds to support students in this field. “On average a student needs about Shs8 million to execute a research, but many cannot afford this money,” he said adding that resources per student keep declining and the quality of education is affected in the long run.

According to Dr Da Silva, this shortfall has constrained the capacity of students pursuing higher degrees in renewable energy to reorient focus and to innovate with public financing already over-stretched.

He said interest of the private sector to fund home- made researchers can offset a series of innovation against millions spent in outsourcing experts.
In essence Uganda may fail to respond to the growing demand skilled man power because it is becoming difficult to provide students with the skills necessary to succeed in current and future labour markets.

In June this year, the Makerere vice chancellor Prof. Venansius Baryamureba met officials from the National Science Foundation, an independent US federal agency as part of efforts to seek appropriate universities for international material institutes and materials world network activities with many African countries.