“The City subscribes to the notion of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Executive Mayor Mpho Parks Tau.
“It is imperative that we find alternative energy sources that will also meet our objectives of enterprise development and job creation.”
The city council began piloting the conversion of its Metrobus fleet to run on a mixture of compressed natural gas and diesel at the beginning of this year.
“The City has been piloting alternative gas use in its Metrobus fleet for some time. The results have been positive and we are now exploring the possibility of scaling the project to other municipality-owned entities,” Tau said.
He said the city council had completed a pre-feasibility study on the potential of the Joburg market waste stream to produce bio-methane. The study found that there was potentially sufficient bio-methane to supply about 700 000 litres of diesel-equivalent fuel per year.
Biogas is a product of the breakdown of organic matter also known as biomass – including animal dung and grass cuttings – in the absence of oxygen.
It is a renewable energy source and typically exerts a very small carbon footprint. Biogas contains between 50 and 70 percent methane and is used to produce carbon dioxide, which in turn is used by plants to create new biomass.
Tau urged industry players to move with speed towards changing to alternative energy sources that could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The discovery of alternative energy sources will not only serve to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – even though this is one of the primary objectives – but it will also ensure less reliance on imported oil,” he said.
Carel Snyman, executive director of Sanedi, a company which produces biogas, said it was imperative that the country found alternative sources of energy due to the current high cost of oil.
“Also, burning petrol and diesel has proven to be very inefficient in terms of converting energy into kilometres. Only about 15 to 20 percent of the energy in the tank gets converted into distance, the rest is lost in the production of mostly heat.”
