Turning waste into energy is a way to reduce environmental damage and help fix the country's energy crisis
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South Africans throw away over 566 million tonnes of rubbish each year according to the Drankenstein municipality. Much of our garbage ends up buried in massive landfills, causing untold damage to the environment. Add the waste that comes from farming, and you have a ticking environmental time bomb.
Livestock production is one of the most destructive farming practices there is. Times reports that some 40% of the earth’s surface is used for the purposes of keeping all seven billion of us fed, while the production of red meat requires 28 times more land than pork or chicken farming, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions.
Livestock manure is responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together, according to the Independent.
Bio2watt is a private, forward-thinking energy generator that has partnered with car manufacturer BMW to use waste to produce power. The company is producing electricity for the car manufacturer to use as a supplement to their power needs in manufacturing. Using offal from abattoirs, manure from livestock farmers in the area and organic waste from juice makers, the company is able to produce two mega watts of power.
South Africa has been battling energy shortages since 2008. Alternative power generation is one of the ways government is looking to supplement the country’s energy supply, and biogas is one way to do it.
Sean Thomas, founder of Bio2watt, says companies can work together to reduce the environmental damage.
“We had to convince some of the players that instead of sending your waste matter to [a] landfill, we can process it in the plant. It creates jobs, it’s about sustainability and you’re meeting some of your sustainability indexes,” he says
Bacteria break down waste and methane is produced. The methane is then used to power generators that produce energy.
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Watch Sean Thomas explain how waste matter can be used to produce energy.​

Italian renewable energy group Building Energy looks set to remained active in South Africa after recently playing host to the country’s minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane at the company’s headquarters in Milan.
Building Energy, a globally integrated independent power producer, has developed and manages  more than 30 projects in South Africa and Central Africa, including the 81 MW Kathu solar farm in the Northern Cape, one of the biggest PV plants on the continent. The group also operates wind, biomass and hydro-electric projects in the country, including the 14 MW biomass plant in Mkuze, the first and largest biomass plant in Africa.

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/building-energy-sees-huge-potential-in-south-africa_100021595/#ixzz3p5eFfJRl

Alliance BioEnergy Plus, Inc. (OTCQB:ALLM) (the "Company") announced today that through its subsidiary AMG Energy Group, LLC it has signed its first licensing agreement for the territory of South Africa with Naldogen (Pty) Ltd for an upfront fee of Twenty Five Million Dollars ($25,000,000) plus royalties. In addition the Company negotiated a Twenty Four and One Half Percent (24.5%) ownership in Naldogen in exchange for a Twenty Four and One Half Percent (24.5%) ownership for Naldogen in a to be determined Company owned CTS plant in the United States.

Naldogen PTY LTD plans to change its name to Carbolosic Energy SA in order to better represent its new direction and is majority owned by Tes Projects (Pty) Ltd and its principal Sonono Khoza, traditional wife of South African President Jacob Zuma and daughter of legendary South African businessman, owner of the Orlando, Pirates soccer team and organizer of the World Cup, Irvin Khoza. Naldogen is also owned in part by the South African company Spearhead Capital which was instrumental in bringing the CTS technology to South Africa. Naldogen intends to build CTS plants in several providences around South Africa in an effort to create thousands of jobs, reduce energy costs and create a "green" economy in a country in much needs of economic stimulus. 

The Agreement was signed last Wednesday in the Johannesburg offices of Spearhead Capital by Sonono Khoza and Alliance BioEnery Plus CEO, Daniel de Liege. "This is a major step in the commercialization of the CTS technology and only the first of many licenses we will see around the world," said Company CEO Daniel de Liege. 

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Sappi Southern Africa CEO Alex Thiel welcomed the announcement made on Friday 10 April 2015 that Ngodwana Energy has been chosen as a preferred bidder in the Department of Energy's 4th window Renewable Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). 

The Ngodwana Energy project is situated 50km west of Mbombela in the Mpumalanga Province on the Sappi Ngodwana Mill Site and will feed electricity into the national grid near its location within Elands Valley, between Emgwenya (formally Waterval Boven) and Mbombela (formerly Nelspruit).

The Project will contribute to the growth and development objectives of the National Government, Mpumalanga province, the communities and businesses in the vicinity as well as Eskom and the citizens of South Africa. The value added by Ngodwana Energy to the Mpumalanga region and National Government over the term of the PPA is significantly higher than alternate renewable energy technologies due to the extent and impact of value creation. Significant ongoing value is created due to the nature of biomass projects and the monetary and job creation spend across the project value chain; from collecting biomass in the plantations, through plant and equipment contracts, to community impact through the Trusts and the economic development and socio-economic development spend as well as shareholder returns. 

"Sappi is pleased to be able to contribute to the increased availability of renewable energy in South Africa" commented Alex Thiel. "Sappi will continue to focus on extracting maximum value from the renewable and sustainable wood fibre that we grow. This project builds on our earlier R3bn investment at Ngodwana Mill and further strengthens our presence in Mpumalanga province". 

Globally Sappi has developed and constructed five hydro, two gas and 31 steam turbines which generates around 800MW of renewable power on 14 sites across seven countries.

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A land claim brought against South Africa’s largest sugar farmer threatens to stop a 1.1 billion rand ($90 million) renewable-energy project that will produce electricity by burning leftover cane leaves and tops.

Charl Senekal Suiker Trust, which has 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) of irrigated cane land and is a grower for Tongaat Hulett Ltd., is part of a group that plans to build a 16.5 megawatt biomass facility in KwaZulu-Natal, according to a presentation on the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s website. Talks to settle claims by four communities bordering part of his farm will take place on Friday, Charl Senekal, the white owner, said by phone on Wednesday.

The government of Africa’s most industrialized economy is promoting agriculture and providing access to land as part of redistribution policies to compensate black South Africans for the seizure of property under white-minority rule that ended in 1994. At the same time, the country is turning to renewable energy as it struggles to meet power demand after failing to invest in generation even as the government expanded supply to millions of households.

“The whole project can collapse if they don’t accept our offer,” Senekal said, declining to give details because they are private. “We’ve made a very reasonable proposal to the government and we hope that this will be successful. I am sure it will be accepted. It’s a great project.”

No Power

Work on the plant in Mkuze is scheduled to start in August if all the communities agree to the offer, with the first electricity to be produced 22 months later, Senekal said. It may create about 400 jobs, and the project will be able to repay its debt in eight years, he said. All four of the community groups need to support the plan for it to go ahead, he said. South Africa has a 24.3 percent unemployment rate.

The development must continue regardless of the outcome of the claim, Dumisani Myeni, chairman of Silwane Trust, established to handle the claims, said by phone from Mkuze. Community groups will be open to leasing the land should the claim succeed. The groups include the Myeni, Ngwenya and Zulu tribes.

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South Africa’s third largest gold miner, Harmony Gold, has been on the forefront of utilizing solar into its electricity mix.

According to PV Insider, “The the company has started building a 5- to 7-megawatt solar park in Free State province, and another 18-MW facility in North West province, with the goal of alleviating pressure on peak energy usage.”

The company is also working to use mine-impact land and tailings to pilot biocrop procreating in the form of giant king grass and sugar beet. By combining renewable with bioenergy and land rehabilitation, Harmony Gold will be able to use the biocrops as feedstock to generate nautral gas as a fossil fuel substitute.

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HE Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has achieved its target of investing R5bn a year in green energy projects and this portfolio is now about R15bn.

South Africa is a leader on the continent in renewable energy. The sector has developed rapidly since the government launched a programme three years ago to encourage independent power production.

Raoul Goosen, the IDC’s specialist in green industries, said on Tuesday at a presentation by Uhuru Energy — a biogas company with which the IDC is co-operating on several projects — that South Africa had large tracts of underutilised land suitable for biofuel crops.

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Farmers and landowners want to lower fuel and feed costs, explore feed and fertilizer co-products, be more self-sufficient, and rely less of fossil fuels. Biomass grass crops can be established on marginal lands and processed as a fuel replacement for heating oil or propane, or as an addition to wood chips or pellets.There are four main models for implementing grass energy on a farm. The models differ from each other in where the grass is grown and processed. Two are closed-loop models, in which the grass is grown and processed on-site, and the others are variations of processing the grass in a central facility and distributing production of the feedstock among regional farms.

Grass fuel can occur as bales that get chopped just prior to combustion or densified fuels like pellets, cubes, or briquettes. The densified fuels are made using machinery that applies high temperature and pressure to the chopped feedstock, pressing it into the desired shape. A series of dies and knives are responsible for cutting the fuel into its desired shape. Each of the four grass energy models, described below, produce one or two of these types of fuel.

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VIASPACE Inc. (OTCQB: VSPC) today announced that VIASPACE partner Selectra CC and the Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited of South Africa made a formal announcement of Harmony's implementation of the first bioenergy project on mining property in South Africa. The goal of the project is to grow energy crops---sugar beets and Giant King Grass--on contaminated mine affected lands in order to restore and rehabilitate the land. Gold-mining is a very large industry in South Africa and there are thousands of acres of mine tailings and mine affected land that need to be restored. The announcement was made by Mr. Leonard Rootman of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited and Mr. Dwight Rosslee of Selectra at the Renewables and Mining Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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