Potentials for Sustainable Commercial Biofuels Production in Nigeria

Abstract

Biofuel production has since shifted from the sole practice of the West, EU and a few other developed countries to being accepted globally. Many more countries have continued to enact appropriate legislations or formulate policy instruments that serve as the regulatory framework for biofuels production within their administrative jurisdictions. Nigeria’s participation was signaled with the introduction of the National Biofuels Policy and Incentives in 2007. Reasons for its invasive global acceptance include the environmental tolerance to its use in preference to the conventional fossil fuels and its potentials of creating socio-economic benefits, particularly in the areas of rural socio-economic development and empowerment. The focus of this paper is to underscore the major potentials for production of biofuels in Nigeria and the problems that may be encountered. It also examined those potentials and how they can be exploited for a sustainable commercial production in a way that brings benefits to the country both in the short and long term.

Keywords: Biofuels; Feedstocks; Agro-ecological zones; Fossil fuels; Policy and Incentives