The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has said Nigeria’s disregard of the electricity generation potential in the 40,959 tonnes of solid municipal waste she generates everyday was uneconomical especially with regards to her very poor electricity generation profile.
NSE thus asked the country to quickly adopt waste-to-power in her energy mix. It said by 2025, the country would have grown the volume of waste generated across her cities to 101,307 tonnes per day.
The President of NSE, Otis Anyaeji stated this recently in Abuja when he presented the outcome of the African engineering conference on energy which was held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
He said: “Africa is challenged with dwindling fossil fuel sources and growing concerns about climate change, effective waste disposal technique and pollution control.
“Energy generation capacity in Nigeria for example is grossly inadequate at per capita generation rate of approximately 23.6Watts with a municipal solid waste load of about 40,959 tonnes per day, projected to reach 101,307 tonnes per day by 2025 based on 2012 World Bank estimate. Wastes to energy are an area that has a lot of energy mix potential for Nigeria but is yet to be developed.”
Anyeji also stated that the conference therefore recommended that, African governments should put in place policies, institutional, legal and regulatory frameworks for development of waste-to-energy with incentives that will encourage research and investment.
He also explained: “Governments in conjunction with private sectors should implement Installation of biomass gasifier plants and some small sized rotary dryers for provision of reliable heating for drying and electricity for rural enterprises thus increasing the income generated by the rural communities.
“African governments should adopt appropriate waste to energy conversion technology especially anaerobic digestion to sustainably generate electricity from organic materials and agricultural waste through primary product biogas which is eco-friendly.”
He further noted that the conference observed that though Africa is endowed with huge resources for renewable energy, meeting the enormous energy demand for development in Africa has been a challenge, and thus asked that governments of African countries should develop the political will to harness renewable energy resources as well as imbibe energy efficiency and best practices to optimize energy demand.
“African governments should strengthen human skills and infrastructural capacities in their various countries to handle renewable energy technologies. Governments and the private sector should invest more on R&D required to improve efficiencies and bring down cost of renewable energy technologies. Energy resources should be diversified to include other sources such as hydro power, biomass, solar, wind and tidal systems,” he added.
