Craving Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress II

Craving Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress II

As stated in the first part of this article, the fourth effort ABU Zaria is making to source for alternative energy is the conversion of typha grass into biogas, animal feeds and organic fertilizer. This effort is through one of the university’s research centers: National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison services (NAERLS).

Typha grass is one of the resource materials with higher potentials for biogas generation. The plant is aquatic in nature and highly prolific with occupation and blockage capability of the inland waterways and irrigation channels. It can store a large amount of energy by growing fast and producing large biomass, and this, in turn, pollutes the environment. This has been a major problem in the Hadejia Valley irrigation project in northern Nigeria. At this irrigation scheme, the plant threatens economic activities, health and livelihood of the surrounding communities. Typha growth negatively affects the productivity of rice fields, blocks water channels, impedes the flow of rivers, hinders navigation and fishing, and increases flooding risks. The grass covers significant percentage of the irrigation canals and drainage networks crisscrossing the entire 22,000 hectares of the irrigation land in Hadejia Valley Irrigation project. It tails the Hadejia River down to the Nguru wetlands. Typha grass is pervasively an ecological problem with serious threat to surrounding environment.

However, typha grass has astronomical potential to be used as a renewable energy source for generation of methane as well as conversion into animal feed. Methane is an odorless and highly flammable gas, which is a product of biological decomposition of organic matter. Despite this potential as an energy source, no effort was made to convert the grass environmental menace to economic opportunity. This could be attributed to the low rate of cellulosic digestion, as well as ability to slow specific growth rates of microorganisms involved in anaerobic conversion in conventional bioreactors. The typha grass project team innovated means of enriching microorganism with high cellulose degrading abilities through the use of rumen fluid that enhances Typha biomass degradation for biogas generation.

The Typha project team recorded excellent results at the laboratory experimentation; the microorganisms were able to degrade the grass   and provided a source of clean energy for lighting, heating, and cooking. Thus, the team was able to conceive innovative sustainable solutions to typha menace with high potentials of providing affordable power for Nigerians in rural areas and also improving the health and livelihood of families. This novel and unique technology for the economic conversion of typha biomass into biogas and animal feed with high efficiency provides a totally new approach to addressing environmental menace. It is indeed a great relief to the Nigerian people the opportunity of transforming the invasive typha weed into biogas to use locally in their communities and at the same time use of it directly as a raw material for animal feed, when harvested in early stages of plant growth or ensiling to use during the dry season.

The typha grass project is beyond addressing the environmental dilapidation of the irrigation project area, it has high level of diplomatic and academic niceties. Four universities in three different countries located in three different continents constituted the project team of researchers. The universities are ABU Zaria (NAERLS) and Federal University Gashua, Nigeria; University Polytechnic of Madrid, Spain, and University of Maryland, USA. Prof Eva Iglesias Martínez of Centre for the Management of Agricultural and Environmental Risks (CEIGRAM) UPM, Spain heads the multi-disciplinary team of typha Project researchers from these universities.

The project is one the World Bank funded activities in Nigeria under the Project- Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. The research commenced in 2017 and has a 3 – year duration for completion. The broad objective is to develop alternative management and economic uses of typha biomass. This is done by converting the typha into an opportunity to improve livelihood of Nigerian people with emphasis on women as household managers using typha for biogas production and animal nutrition. Over the years, typha has become uncontrolled and invasive in the irrigation channels, rivers and agricultural land of the Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project (HVIP). The project is all encompassing with ten specific objectives including assessment of the long-term sustainability as well as evaluation of the social, environmental and economic impacts of the project on the people and environment in the study area. The project is aimed at transforming the ecological devastation of irrigation schemes caused by typha grass to economic opportunities and improvement of living standard.

In the last two years when the project started, a lot of water has passed under the bridge: one Nigerian PhD student, a personnel of ABU Zaria has completed his experimentation and field work in University of Maryland and ABU Zaria. Two other students, one from Federal University Gasua and the other from ABU Zaria are pursuing MSc programs under the project. The PhD student used factorial experimental design to investigate the viability of biogas production from factorial combinations of typha growth stages, mixing with rumen fluid as inoculant source. It was quite an intensive work that brought out excellent methodology on how to convert the grass to biogas and organic fertilizer. The best combination was that of dried 50 grams pre-bloom typha, grinded into 1-mm particle size and mixed with rumen media. This combination produced 10,142 ml volume of gas and generated 234 ml/g of volatile solid (VS). In days to come, the project will make biogas digesters available for the benefit of the communities.

In addition to benefiting the young Nigerian scientists in their PhD and MSc programs, there have been series of exchange visits before and during the project implementation. The researchers exchanged visits within and in-between Nigeria, Spain and USA with bounties of academic opportunities, knowledge and experience sharing as well as capacity building among the researchers and other stakeholders. These are efforts of ABU Zaria in anxious search of alternative energy to meet her daily needs. Now what are the efforts of UN Nsukka?

In Nigeria, the week of 18^th March 2019 was awash with media blitz of UN Nsukka innovation in generating electricity using organic waste. Daily Post (online Newspaper) of 21^st March and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) of 19^th March 2019 were among the media that reported Prof Benjamin Ozumba, the Vice-Chancellor expressing his happiness over the inauguration of the locally generated electricity. He was quoted saying, “University of Nigeria Nsukka would no longer be a customer to Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC)”. “I am happy that the university under my watch has witnessed innovations and transformation, as today another feather has been added to the cap of my administration”. He further said “This is the first of its kind in the country, using of waste to generate electricity. By the time more of the plants are produced that will cover every part of the university, millions of naira will be saved every month, as UNN will longer pay monthly electricity bill to EEDC, ” The Vice Chancellor commended research team led by Prof Emenike that produced the Refuse Driven Fuel (RDF) gas plant. Prof Ejiogu, from the Department of Electrical Engineering of the university similarly praised Ozumba on his belief of making record-breaking innovations to transform UN Nsukka. Ejiogu was quoted saying, “The 100 KVA RDF project is designed and fabricated by laboratory of industrial power devices and energy system under special grant by Ozumba. The aim is to enable UNN to generate its own electricity with organic waste that will serve as fuel”. He further said “UNN power demand now is 3megawatts, so with twelve 250KVA of RDF plants, the electricity supply need of the university will be met. It is cheaper and can carry more load than solar energy installation. With RDF plant in your house or office, it will carry your air-conditioner, deep freezers, pressing iron and other things in your house…” This is another giant effort from Ivory Towers in search of alternative energy. ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka were both pushed to the wall to think out of the box for a sustainable solution to perennial and unending energy crisis: short supply, high cost and unreliable. There are may be several other pockets of effort in similar way to find lasting solution to national energy crisis/embarrassment. Can there be synergy? Perhaps, National University Commission or the Energy Commission of Nigeria can champion this course.

 

Craving for Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress

Craving for Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress

Globally, there are three fundamental functions of a university system in a nation building. The functions are teaching, research and community service. These functions require enormous and consistent use of human and materials sources, conducive-atmosphere and continuous supply of energy to operate the system. The quantum of these requirements is proportional to the size of the university. Relatively, large universities need large financial resources to meet these requirements and play their expected roles. In Nigeria, with free-tuition fee for undergraduate students in public universities, low-income generation, relatively small available grants and poor funding; managing university to meet these requirements becomes herculean. The consequences are perennial and unending university’s unions’ industrial actions as well as difficulty in maintaining educational standard. Among these requirements, energy is the life-wire of the university system but it is highly unreliable in Nigerian situation. It is also the most fund guzzling of the university’s lean purse on monthly basis. This has made management of public university very challenging.

The case of monthly payment of electricity bill by Ahmadu Bello University Zaria can clearly show the enormity of fund use to settle the bill of electricity. The current Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Ibrahim Garba at the resumption of office in 2015 was welcomed by the mounting challenge of paying sky-rocketed electricity bill of over 80 million Naira monthly. He was quoted lamenting on the university’s difficulty to pay the bill “that independent power generation became imperative and necessary to the university because ABU could not sustain the N86 million monthly electricity bills. ABU seeks to address these issues by building a bio-ethanol and biogas plant for the benefits of the university and the surrounding communities”    

The high cost of energy to operate large university and continuous increase in prices of petroleum products, especially kerosene, the socio-economic implications and their impact on the environment make it imperative for the managers of Nigerian universities to search for efficient alternatives. This is why at least two universities are making fruitful progress in finding quantifiable biogas as alternative to public electricity supply. These universities are Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria and University of Nigeria (UN) Nsukka. How far have they gone? What are their challenges and opportunities to potential investors?

Before then, it is important to adequately introduce these two first generation universities, ABU Zaria, located in capital of Zazzau emirate, Kaduna State and UN Nsukka, located in northern fringe of Igbo Land, Enugu State. They were both conceived and nurtured by pre-independence nationalists; Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha. Bello was the first and the last premier of the northern region while Azikiwe was Governor General of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963 and the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966.

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria. It was established in 1962 by the Government of the then Northern Region of Nigeria to impart knowledge and learning to men and women of all races without distinction on the grounds of race, religious or political beliefs. The founding fathers expected the University to aspire to the highest international ideals of scholarship and to provide learning of a standard required and expected of a university of the highest standing while reflecting the needs, the traditions, and the social and intellectual heritage of the society in which it is located. The University was taken over by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1975 and has since then assumed a national mandate although its ties with the 19 states created out of the former Northern Region remain very strong and ever glued

In the over fifty years of its existence, ABU has grown to become the largest, and the most influential and diverse university in Nigeria. It consists of over 100 Academic Departments, thirteen Faculties, and fourteen Research Institutes and Specialized Centres. The University offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in diverse fields of Agriculture, Public and Business Administration, Engineering, Environmental Design, Education, Biological and Physical Sciences, Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Humanities, Law and Social Sciences. The university has two campuses; Samaru and Kongo covering an estimated area of 7,000 hectares of land. Another unique feature of the University, as opposed to other Institutions of its type in Nigeria, is that it has both staff and students from all nooks and cranny of Nigeria, neighboring countries and few other countries across the continents. The university alumni cut across the social classes from former Nigerian President, Vice President, serving and former governors/Deputy governors of virtually all the 36 governors plus Federal Capital Territory, Abuja down to thousands of local government councilors and millions of ordinary graduates of different specializations nationwide and across the globe. Today, ABU Zaria houses over hundred thousand people comprising, undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and their families living within and outside Zaria. In spite of her relatively large size, ABU Zaria is amazingly expanding in academic programs, students and staff population as well as in academic excellence.

The motivation for ABU Zaria to source for alternative energy came from the university’s desire to drastically reduce the monthly electricity bill being paid to PHCN. In addition, alternative energy will reduce dependence on the fossil fuel as energy source.

In the last four years or so, ABU Zaria has vigorously craved for alternative energy. The university has recorded four different efforts with high potential to revolutionize energy production to meet her needs and the needs of her surrounding communities.

The first project was the Nigeria-German Energy Partnership for the construction of 10 Mega watts from solar energy source. The project implementation commenced with a financial support of Tertiary Education Trust Fund. The second one was through a collaborative project with a Hungarian firm; Agrar-Biothanol Company to generate power from farm produce and human waste (faeces). The ABU- Agrar-Biothanol Company project targeted to produce 2.66 million litres of ethanol per annum, 1,333 tons of liquid organic fertilizer per annum and 1.2 Mega watts of electricity. The third equally important effort was ABU-BIONAS project whose Memorandum of Understanding  (MOU) between the university and BIONAS, a Malaysian Firm, were signed a year ago.

The fourth effort was the conversion of typha grass into biogas, animal feeds and organic fertilizer. This effort is through one of the university research center: National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison services (NAERLS). The typha grass conversion project is a 3 – year World Bank funded project under Transformation of Irrigation in Nigeria (TRIMING). The typha project is aimed at transforming the ecological devastation of irrigation schemes caused by typha grass to economic opportunities.

Typha grass is one of the resource materials with higher potentials for biogas generation. The plant is aquatic in nature and highly prolific with occupation and blockage capability of the inland waterways and irrigation channels. It can store a large amount of energy by growing fast and producing large biomass, and this, in turn, polluted the environment. This was a major problem in the Hadejia Valley irrigation project in northern Nigeria. At this irrigation scheme, the plant threatens economic activities, health and livelihood of the surrounding communities. Typha growth negatively affects the productivity of rice fields, blocks water channels impedes the flow of rivers, hinders navigations and fishing, and increases flooding risks. Despite its potential to be used as a renewable energy source for biogas generation, limited effort has been made to do that. This could be attributed to the low rate of cellulosic digestion, as well as ability to slow specific growth rates of anaerobic microorganisms involved in anaerobic conversion in conventional bioreactors.

The typha grass project innovated means of enriching microorganism with high cellulose activities through the use of rumen fluid that enhances Typha biomass degradation for biogas generation. At the laboratory experimentation, the microorganisms were able to degrade the grass   and provided a source of clean energy for lighting, heating, and cooking. The technology could serve as an innovative solution with high potentials to not only provide affordable power for Nigerians in rural areas but also to greatly improve the health and livelihood of families (To be Continued next week)

Readers Comments on Cowpea

Readers’ Comments

This is a continuation of the readers’ comments of 22^nd March 2019. Last Friday, 29^th March 2019, this Column was missing due to exigency of office with several commitments. Today, I am concluding the readers’ comments on the previous issues discussed here especially the controversial GMO. The piece written by Dr. Rose Gidado may clear doubts of readers that GMO is safe and it is the byproduct of biotechnology, a gigantic breakthrough of the 21^st century. The edited article is titled ‘BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION: NIGERIA IN PERSPECTIVE’. Happy reading

‘The rapid growth and application of biotechnology is widely attributed to the development of genetic engineering (the alteration of genetic materials) in the 1970s. Some of the products developed in this manner include human insulin, and human growth hormone. The techniques of genetic engineering also offer the opportunity for a number of heredity disorders to be corrected by manipulation. This has led to successes in the treatment of various diseases and the popular breakthrough in the genome project. Biotechnology revolution promises a future of unprecedented health and longevity. The DNA screening could prevent many diseases while the gene therapy could cure diseases. Thanks to lab grown organs, the human body could be repaired as easily as a car, with spare parts readily available. Ultimately, the ageing process itself could be slowed down.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), biotechnology holds great promise for agriculture in developing economies such as Nigeria. This has provided the opportunity for basic food crops as cassava, potato, rice and wheat to receive more attention by scientists.

 Given the challenges of population increase and its attendant problems of pollution increase, biotechnology remains the most reliable means of environmental sustenance. The world is currently endangered as human activities for survival continue to pollute the environment. In the process of converting raw materials into finished goods and products, for example, petrochemical substances are converted into polythene products; the environment correspondingly becomes littered with substances not needed in the course of production. Thus, in the process of creating products, problems are created in form of pollution either consciously or unconsciously. As a result, the most acceptable solution to the generated wastes in the environment is the one that can conveniently integrate them back into the environment. That method involves the use of microorganisms such as yeasts, bacteria, or fungi as whole cell usage production system or in the form of industrial enzymes. In many cases these microorganisms or their products are integrated into the substrates, which give us the products, desired in the industries.

Biotechnology tools have long been used in many developed countries such as the United States, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Japan, and others. Africa is still lagging from being integrated into these environmental sustainability best practices. Africa generally and Nigeria in particular is yet to imbibe maximally the benefit of using biotechnology in addressing issues associated with environmental degradation and sustainability. In the oil rich Niger Delta, the lingering problem of environmental degradation from crude oil productions has remained a dominant issue of public discuss and concern. Crude oil spill affects germination and growth of plants, which in turn affects the overall production of crops due to its negative impact on the chlorophyll content responsible for the yield of plants. Severe crude oil spill in the oil rich Niger Delta has forced some farmers to migrate out of their traditional home, especially those that depend solely on agriculture. The negative impact of oil spillages remains the major cause of depletion of the Niger Delta vegetation cover and the mangrove ecosystem.

The Nigerian major cities such as Aba, Enugu, Onitsha, Port-Harcourt, Kano, Ibadan, and Lagos are characterized by huge mounds of solid waste dumps (both bio-degradable and non bio-degradable) generated from households, industries, markets, schools, and street trading. This can be attributed to migration, population increase, urbanization, constructions, and industrialization coupled with inefficient and improper disposal of wastes.

Biotechnological techniques for treatment of wastes are components of environmental bio-tools. They sustain the environment and make use of bio-products as well as microorganisms for pollution reduction. They produce environmentally friendly products as well as maintain the natural environment for the benefit of man and other ecosystem components. Biotechnology can also be applied industrially for use in developing products and processes that generate less waste and use less nonrenewable resources and consume less energy. In this respect, biotechnology is well positioned to contribute to the development of a more sustainable society through a sustainable environment. Environmental biotechnology is therefore futuristic and limitless in application and usage. Examples of these Bio-tools use to remedy environmental pollutions and sustain the environment include bioleaching (bio-mining), bio-detergent, bio-treatment of pulp, bio-treatment of wastes (bio-remediation), bio-filtrations, aquaculture treatments, bio-treatment of textiles, biocatalysts, biomass fuel production and bio-monitoring. The products arising from the application of these bio-tools when discarded easily go back into the ecosystem. As such, they become reconverted into organic components of the environments. Moreover, their production is strictly biological instead of chemical that is largely responsible for introduction of pollutants.

Nigeria is the focus on how to begin to make use of biotechnology as well as these bio-tools for enhanced agricultural productivity and improvement of the badly degraded environment. Agricultural and Environmental Biotechnology hold a lot of promise for the development of the agricultural/ industrial sector as well as ensuring environmental sustainability in Nigeria. Its role in national development includes providing the technology to transform the agricultural/environmental sector to enhance food security, ensure industrialization and sustainable environment, create jobs, reduce poverty and create wealth.

However, the growing concern on the safety of biotechnology to humans and environment has adversely affected the full domestication and spade of its revolution in the country. This arises because of misunderstanding and fear about what this technology really holds for Nigeria. The application of Biotechnology under a legal framework is a valuable tool for addressing these challenges. A win-win situation could be achieved with effective communication strategy between the scientist and the public. Scientist must be adequately trained in communication and adopt the best strategy to drive their message. This is why we must acknowledge the contributions of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) in Africa, Nigerian Chapter to enhancing understanding of biotechnology in agriculture for productivity; promoting targeted capacity development that will improve communication across all sectors interested in Biotechnology and contributing to informing policy decision making processes on matters of agricultural biotechnology through provision of factual, well research and scientific information.

OFAB is domiciled in NABDA and collaborates with other relevant stakeholders to organize workshops and conferences for increase advocacy and public enlightenment. The enlightenment is aimed at educating the populace on the benefits of modern biotechnology, use of GMO crops and biotech products; and the existence of strong regulatory framework to ensure safe application of modern biotechnology. This brings biotechnology to the front burner in the diversification of Nigeria’s economy under a sound bio-safety regulatory framework, creates Biotechnology champions that could effectively play advocacy role on biotechnologically related matters. It also equip stakeholders, including researchers, farmers, mass media practitioners, etc with the requisite skills on effective biotechnology communication to encourage the “pro science” group to be more proactive; among others.

Nigeria as a nation is expected to take advantage of biotechnology to increase the choice of farmers for improved seeds, provide solution to malnutrition; combat issues of food insecurity enhance their financial status, make farming attractive to the young folks, address various environmental degradation related issues and ensure improved bio-diversity. The recent establishment of bio-safety law in Nigeria should allay the fears of the public with regard to modern biotechnology and its products. Nigeria must not lean on Europe or the USA but should move boldly towards ensuring better future through deployment of modern Biotechnology. Having in recognition of the importance of Biotechnology established the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and adopted the National Biosafety Management Agency Act 2015 as an appropriate regulatory body, Nigeria cannot afford any longer to miss the benefits accruable from the current global biotechnology revolution especially as it concerns harnessing Biotechnology to enhance agricultural productivity and ensure economic diversification. It is therefore imperative for Nigerian government to fast-track the development of Agricultural Biotechnology by complementing the efforts of OFAB and other relevant stakeholders as well as showing full commitment to its financing’.