The recently published draft regulatory framework for biofuels production has raised concerns among researchers about how serious government is about protecting South Africa’s scarce water resources.

At issue are provisions in the new framework, drafted by the Department of Energy (DoE), which state that biofuels manufacturers require a ‘detailed motivation’ for irrigating biofuels feedstock without impacting on “constrained water resources”, and a letter of approval from the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) to irrigate.

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) hydrologist Richard Kunz says these provisions appear to contradict the DWA’s long-standing opposition to the irrigation of biofuels feedstocks.

“What we see here are two government departments somewhat contradicting each other over the issue of water,” said Kunz.

“It is not clear how the DWA will provide such letters [of approval], considering that, in 2009, it released a statement highlighting the fact that South Africa is a water-scarce country which can ‘ill afford the use of current or potential irrigation water for fuel production rather than growing crops for food’,” he says.

The DWA has also signalled its intention to impose industrial, as opposed to agricultural, tariffs on irrigated water used for biofuels feedstock production.

Concerns over water use have consistently featured in all key documentation pertaining to the establishment of the nascent biofuels industry. For example, a 2006 feasibility study conducted in preparation for the development of the National Biofuels Industrial Strategy noted a likely increased pressure on water resources from energy crops and called for more research by the Water Research Commission (WRC) into the effect of commercial and small-scale biofuels production on both water quality and quantity prior to the roll-out of the strategy.

The strategy itself, endorsed by Cabinet in 2007, notes that “much of the country is water stressed and that there are severe limitations on the availability of additional water for allocation to new uses”. Criteria for licence applications by biofuel manufacturers stated that the “production of feedstock under irrigation will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances”.

Kunz says the DWA is under increased pressure to reallocate water to emerging farmers as part of its water allocation reform strategy, considering that only 5% to 6% of irrigated water is used by small-scale farmers.

The framework is the long-awaited last step in the process of getting the fledgling multibillion-rand biofuels industry – intended to create thousands of jobs and economic opportunities for small-scale and emerging farmers – off the ground.

Finalisation of the framework will also finally pave the way for the construction of two processing plants producing bioethanol from grain sorghum – one at Bothaville, in the Free State, with a production capacity of 158-million litres, and a smaller plant at Cradock, in the Eastern Cape, with a production capacity of 90-million litres. Pressure to complete the plants arises out of government’s requirement – announced in 2012 – that the petroleum industry must blend 2% of locally produced bioethanol into its petrol supply by October 2015.

Kunz argues that the process leading up to the formulation of the framework document, as well as the document itself, has not given “due diligence” to the impact of feedstock production on water use. Neither was expert academic input sought into the development of the National Biofuels Industrial Strategy endorsed by Cabinet in 2007 or the more recent task teams set up to address issues in specific areas, such as feedstock production.

This is despite the fact that water use in biofuels production has been a strong area of academic research for a number of years, and, in April 2009, became the subject of a dedicated R7.4-million WRC research project led by UKZN professor Graham Jewitt, with Kunz as the principal investigator.

The six-year-long project followed an earlier scoping study, also funded by the WRC, which started in 2007 and was published in 2009. The study produced data on water use and growing conditions of some biofuels crops and highlighted areas where knowledge was lacking. The current follow-up study, which investigates water use of a comprehensive range of potential biofuels feedstocks, also involves the detailed mapping of areas in South Africa suited to feedstock production. Once finalised in July 2015, it will assist the DWA in assessing the potential impact of large-scale feedstock production on water resources.

Already, preliminary findings criticise government’s approach to biofuel production, including the choice of grain sorghum as a preferred ethanol feedstock. Results from trials conducted thus far at sites in Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg show that grain sorghum and soybean are the least efficient users of water, compared with other feedstocks, including sweet sorghum, sugarbeet, and even maize, the latter currently banned as a biofuels feedstock.

Researchers at UKZN have modelled water use in about 5 800 subcatchment areas throughout the country. Using natural vegetation as a baseline, the researchers are able to calculate the reduction in stream flow that may result from a land use change to biofuel feedstock cultivation. The model is an effective tool for assessing “streamflow reduction activities” and those feedstocks which might have a significant impact on water resources. Currently, commercial afforestation is the only recognised stream reduction activity in South Africa, necessitating permission from government for any expansion of planted area.

According to Kunz, while feedstock water use efficiency is affected by management practice, preliminary findings from both the scoping study and the current research project indicate that grain sorghum and soybean are not the most water use efficient feedstocks.

“Sweet sorghum and sugarbeet have higher water use efficiencies,” said Kunz.

However, the agronomy of both sweet sorghum and sugarbeet is less understood under South African growing conditions. Further research, he said, is required, in particular around plant breeding, to produce cultivars better suited to local growing conditions. For example, disease incidence is high when a largely temperate crop like sugarbeet is produced in hot and humid climates in KwaZulu-Natal.

Thus, while these crops exhibit considerable potential for biofuel production, Kunz is of the view that large-scale production of emerging feedstocks such as sugarbeet and sweet sorghum is not yet advised.
Preliminary results also show that the current banning of yellow maize as a biofuels feedstock may be short sighted. On the basis of the quantity of biofuels produced per unit amount of water used in growing the feedstock, results thus far show that yellow maize and sugarbeet produce the most biofuel while using the least amount of water.