Global Biofuels Limited, has concluded arrangement to build power plants with a view to generating 119Mega Watts of electricity in seven states of the federation.

The Head/Consultant, Feedstock Production Group, Global Biofuels Limited, Professor Babatunde Obilana, who disclosed this to THISDAY in Lagos, said the company would generate on average 17MW of electricity per day in each of the seven States. When aggregated, he said this would give a total of 119MW.

He added that 10MW, in each state would be utilizable by workers in the biofuels Life Camp and the surrounding communities without charge, while the remaining 7MW wouldbe sold to the states to improve on power generation capacity.

In Global Biofuels, we are implementing an Integrated Agro-Allied Industry encompassing three major areas such as feed stock sweet sorghum production farm in 3,000 hectares in both core farm and out grower scheme in each of the seven states we are working with.

Secondly, we have got ethanol refining complex and Life camp for the staff and from this set up, the bio-products from the feedstock after crushing and processing into ethanol bargasse is achieved. This bargasse is in large quantity enough to produce power for running turbines and furnaces to generate 17 Mega Watts of electricity per day in each state where the project is sited, he said.

According to him, generating electricity for various communities in seven states in Nigeria without charge is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility. He said, other bio-products from sweet sorghum to ethanol and co-generation include molasses used for syrup and sugar as well as leaves for animal feed or soil fertility (manure).

This is the relationship between biofuels production and electricity generation. On fertilizer issue, we hope that adequate quantities and appropriate quality would be available in the country for use in sweet sorghum production farm in time. "The sorghum is classified into four types based on uses, the grain sorghum, which is used for human food, sweet sorghum known as Takanda in Hausa used for production of ethanol and has juicy sweet stock. "The forage sorghum, needed for animal feed has thin soft stems and juicy leaves and others are broomcorn used for general house cleaning, it has the stalk for firewood,” he added.

Obilana, formerly a Breeder at Ahmadu Bello University, Institute of Agriculture and Research, also worked as the Principal Scientist Sorghum and Millet Improvement Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics globally (ICRISAT).

He explained that production of ethanol in Nigeria and other parts of the world would not compete with the food chain because the use of Sweet Sorghum as the feedstock is a unique and novel agro-industrial approach in Nigeria and West Africa as a whole.

In terms of production, Nigeria cultivates 7.5million hectares of grain sorghum fro human consumption and already exports cross border trading to four West African countries like, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. On the other hand, sweet sorghum is produced in 70,000 hectares, which is 0.01 per cent of the total sorghum. It is therefore easy to see why sweet sorghum, which is non-food feedstock, is appropriate for use in biofuels production. “Most people who are concerned about ethanol production competing with the food chain do not even know the relationship and uses of sorghum types. In Nigeria in particular sorghum also known as pearl millet is the least known and under utilized crop of importance