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http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-07-28T071319Z_01_BAN825991_RTRIDST_0_OZABS-ENERGY-AFRICA-BIOFUEL-20060728.XML
]
DAKAR (Reuters) - Some of Africa's poorest nations are clubbing together
to try to position themselves as global suppliers of biofuel, hoping to use
everything from shrubs to sugar to offset the economic impact of rising crude prices.
Inspired by Brazil, where three quarters of new cars run on a mix of biofuel and gasoline,
13 nations met in Senegal on Thursday to form the African Non-Petroleum Producers
Association (PANPP), aimed at developing alternative energy sources.
"Our continent should have as its vocation to become the primary world
supplier of biofuels," Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told delegates
meeting in the capital, Dakar.
"This step to develop clean energy is all the more pertinent because it calls
for immense areas of cultivable land, where Africa benefits from a clear advantage," he said.
Investment in biofuels, including ethanol derived from sugar cane and biodiesel
from oils, is booming on the back of high oil prices, energy security fears,
limited spare refinery capacity and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions.
Africa produces a range of crops that could be used to make biofuel,
including sugar cane, sugar beet, maize, sorghum and cassava
-- all of which can be used to make ethanol -- and peanuts,
whose oil can be used to power diesel engines.
Alassane Niane, a technical advisor at Senegal's Energy Ministry,
said that while biofuels were a relatively new concept in much of Africa,
progress was being made. Jatropha, a wild shrub, was being used in neighbouring
Mali, a mostly desert nation frequently hit by drought, to make biodiesel to run generators
and water pumps while Senegal's state sugar company was working on a
project to produce ethanol.
"It is the first time here that people are consciously saying there is a need
for biofuel," Niane told Reuters.
"The raw materials exist here, the technical know-how exists here,
we just need the politicians to get behind it," he said.
AFRICAN SOLIDARITY
The International Energy Agency forecast this month that global biofuel
production would nearly double by 2011 -- though it would remain a
marginal energy source compared to gasoline and diesel -- driven partly
by high global oil prices.
Soaring oil prices are hammering economies in Africa, the world's poorest
continent, particularly those without crude reserves, threatening to undermine
development efforts and in some cases sparking unrest over the rising cost of basic goods.
"If measures are not taken, non-oil producing African nations ... will inevitably head
towards economic regression. The promotion of education and access to health
services and clean water will be no more than a pipe-dream," Wade said.
Pump prices are beyond the reach of many consumers in West Africa, who often
resort to buying smuggled fuel in old liquor bottles. Niger and Guinea have seen riots
over fuel prices this year, while in Nigeria and Benin scores have been killed trying
to tap fuel illegally from pipelines or oil tankers.
Wade called for a more even distribution of oil wealth among countries in Africa,
saying the borders which separated one nation from crude reserves in a neighbouring
country were the arbitrary product of colonisation.
"The frontiers that (African unity) makes increasingly absurd should disappear
underground and make oil a common wealth," Wade said. "
A solution can be found based on African solidarity."
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Det leder tankerne hen på vores naboland.
http://www.energybulletin.net/11759.html
"Swedish government embraces peak oil and looks towards biofuels"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml
Sweden 2020
"The world runs on oil. It starts wars, topples governments and makes and breaks entire economies.
But one country is determined to insulate itself from an oil-addicted world.
Sweden has announced a national plan to wean itself off the black stuff by 2020."
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Før man rigitgt kan hjæle en misbruger, skal vedkommende erkende at han har et misbrug,
hvornår kommer danskerne til det punkt, ved 15 kr. pr. liter benzin ? 20 kr., 30 kr.
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Og lidt til Jesper
http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html
Russia Proves 'Peak Oil' is a Misleading Zionist Scam
Jan Rasmussen