Malawi’s ethanol-fuel tests show promise

Malawi has successfully completed a project to test the practicability
of using locally produced ethanol instead of petrol or diesel to power
vehicles.

The experiment was under- taken in two phases by the
Malawi government and privately owned Ethanol Company of Malawi
(Ethco), with the first phase involving the testing of a modified
Mitsubishi Pajero and the second a flexi-fuel vehicle that Ethco
imported from Brazil.

“The tests showed that the performance of
the ethanol-powered vehicle is good, just like that of a petrol-powered
vehicle. The difference is that ethanol consumption for a similar
distance is [slighly] more than the fuel consumption of a petrol
vehicle. This is understandable, as petrol is more ambient than
ethanol, [but] this should be compensated by the pricing structure,”
says Ethco GM Daniel Liwimbi.

He says that,
following the successful completion of the experiments, the Malawi
government plans to procure flexi-fuel vehicles.

“South Africa,
where Malawi gets most of its cars, is working on producing flexi-fuel
cars, which would make their deployment easier. We await this further
development before moving to the next step,” he says.

The Pajero
used in the first series of the experiments was modified to run on 100%
ethanol and underwent two tests during which it was ethanol-driven for
a total distance of 2 110 km at an average speed of 110km/h.

“The results proved that the Pajero can be powered by 100% ethanol,” says Malawi’s director of science and technology, Henry Mbeza.

The
Brazilian-made Ford, which was used in the second series of the
experiments, is designed to run on 100% ethanol or 100% petrol or any
mixture of ethanol and petrol in a single tank.

Malawi launched
the ethanol-driven vehicle research project following a Cabinet
directive which came about as a result of unstable prices of fossil
fuels on the world market.

“Much as we cannot control the price
of fuel on the global market, we cannot afford to just sit down and
watch these events as they unfold,” says Malawi’s Deputy Minister of
Education, Science and Technology, Richard Msowoya.

Malawi
currently uses unleaded petrol blended with 10% ethanol at its
refineries, and before it adopted the use of unleaded petrol in
February 2006, the Southern African country used to blend its petrol
with 20% ethanol.

Malawi produces cane ethanol at two plants:
the Ethco-owned Dwangwa plant, in the central region, and another one
at Nchalo, in the southern reigion, which is owned by local firm Press
Cane. The two are adjacent to sugar cane plantations and sugar
factories owned by multinational sugar group Illovo.

Each of the
two plants has a design capacity of 16-million litres of ethanol but
the two factories are producing below capacity because of the low
availability of molasses, a by-product of sugar production.

Press
Cane and Ethco produce 18-million litres of ethanol a year, which,
Liwimbi says, is not enough to meet local demand, should Malawi start
using ethanol to power vehicles.