KEY ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED AT BIOMASS WEST & CENTRAL AFRICA 2011
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Wide angled perspective of African biomass and bioenergy |
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Developing Africa's energy security and the strategic role of biomass |
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Strategic drivers for promoting biomass trade and advancement in the ECOWAS |
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Biomass as the preferred renewable - returns on investment, developing policy blueprint and integral role of strategic partnerships |
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Bioenergy entrepreneurship as the new development model for Africa |
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Ghana's potential for woodchip export for the European energy market |
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Biomass and rural electrification - understanding and overcoming key challenges & opportunities |
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Feed-in tariffs and other incentives to promote investment in the biomass sector in Ghana |
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Biomass and the social and economic development potential |
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Needs of European utilities & growing biomass in Africa |
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Climate proofing the energy mix: Harnessing the biomass promise |
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Assessing alternative biomass fuel sources - Giant king grass, bio-char pellets |
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Sustainable biomass conversion technologies - Overview, trends, barriers, and the way forward |
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Financing options for African biomass and bioenergy |
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Innovative supply chain for agricultural biomass and for distributed renewable energy systems in Sub-Saharan Africa |
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Sustainability certification schemes and trade flows |
COUNTRY UPDATES
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Mali update: Overview and prospects ahead |
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Nigeria Update: Distributed Generation in Nigeria: Prospects, Challenges and Way Forward |
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Cote d Ivoire Update: Agricultural waste as biomass for energy production: agricultural residue potential in Ivory Coast |
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Central Africa Regional Update: Biomass and strengthening the energy and resilience of ecosystems in Central Africa |
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Cameroon Update: Public-private partnership in the electrification program in Cameroon and the role of renewables |
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Benin Update: Renewables and Biomass in Benin |
"This important forum is the only event forum in Africa that brings current and future producers of bioenergy products together with crop growers, municipal leaders, utility executives, technology providers, project developers, investors and policy makers to network, build partnerships, and identify and evaluate technical and economic solutions."
Munzer M. Sundos, PhD, Chief Business Officer, Viaspace, USA |
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"In Africa, project developers' tend to tap into a few readily available biomass sources and ignore crop residues - the biggest source yet - given their high dispersion means traditional transport options that are non-economical. Exploring radically innovative supply chains could be game changing for Africa in order to reach its full promise."
Richard Seshie, Managing Director, Vivus Renewables, Ghana |
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"Biomass represents an opportunity for Africa to utilize part of its natural resource endowment. With large oil finds, it is obvious that the trade of developed commodities will feature heavily in the story of Africa's development, but hopefully this more nascent industry will play its own fundamental role. The hope is that Africa can not only export its biomass, but use it as well, in effect, skipping years of fossil fuelled energy production, and jumping straight to the renewable energy age."
J.F Guillon, Managing Director & Founder, Africa Renewables Ltd. (Afriren), UK |
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"As leading supplier of pelleting and grinding equipment on a worldwide scale we support this challenging biomass conference. We consider Africa as the upcoming and very interesting continent for development of renewable energy out of biological materials and see big opportunities to locally build very efficient biomass pellet production lines."
Erik de Graaff, Commercial Director, CPM Europe (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) |
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"Energy generation on the basis of biomass is an important option for today and for the future. The use of this renewable resource -be it as biogas or as landfill gas - offers both a solution for environmentally friendly energy generation, saving of fossil fuels and prevention of health hazards. This is true not only for Europe, but also for African countries. Therefore, EnD-I AG highly welcomes the opportunity to participate in the important forum of Accra Biomass Conference and to meet there important players and decision makers in the field of renewable energies."
Mr Ulrike Daniel, Project Manager, EnD-I AG |
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"The potential market value of biomass trade in Africa is varied - with West and Central Africa having the most potential. The potential value of biomass trade for Sub-Saharan African is estimated to be 2 billion US dollars by 2013 (African Review of Business and Technology, 2008). By improving its biomass capabilities, Africa can (emerge) as a major player in global trade in the next ten years. For example, the bioenergy needs of Europe could be provided by West and Central Africa with a well-coordinated supply chain. West and Central Africa have enough land for agriculture, people, and development of sustainable bioenergy production for export."
Mr Adebayo Agbejule, Associate Professor, Department, of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Vaasa University of Applied of Sciences, Finland |
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