Bush encroachment poses a major problem to Namibia’s native ecosystem, the Savannah. Caused by overgrazing, it threatens biodiversity and farmlands. The problem is of substantial scale: 46 mio. ha of land are affected by bush encroachment, growing about 3 % per year. While harvest is energy intensive, requiring manual work, nowaday, a small portion is used, mainly for producing charcoal. The aim of this conference was to shed light on alternative uses oft hat resource, bringing together the Namibia’s biomass and evolving hydrogen sector. Therefore, the discussions for the day revolved around harnessing the encroacher bush as a carbon source for e-fuels products using the hydrogen produced in the Namibian hydrogen projects, such as the Daures Green Hydrogen Village or Cleanergy.
The day started with a keynote from Daniel Shagama from N-BIG (Namibian Biomass Industry Group) giving insight into current utilisation pathways of encroacher bush species. Jerome Namaseb from the Daures Green Hydrogen Village gave an overview over the current status of the project, which mainly targets the production of fertilizer from hydrogen for the Subsahara-African market.
IER-researchers Laina Shipingana, Tobias Schliess, Jonathan Siegle and Cristian Rojas presented their studies regarding the impacts of hydrogen production on the Namibian energy system and its economy, markets and potentials of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production from hydrogen using carbon from the encroacher bush. They showed the importance of quotas to generate offtake of SAF, where Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the key methodology for certification of different production pathways. The prospective LCA model can assess the carbon intensity of hydrogen production under various carbon taxonomies. The developed TIMES model (TINa) for Namibia investigates the role of hydrogen in the Namibian energy system and shows possible trajectories for the domestic energy transition. Furthermore, on a macroeconomic level, the origin of subsidies to ramp up hydrogen uptake is crucial for GDP development.
Some key takeaways are elaborated in Fact Sheets, which can be found here (Fact Sheets: https://github.com/IER-Hy4Daures/Fact-Sheets)
Colin Lindeque from CarbonCapital gave insights into the Namibian charcoal industry, the main way of utilizing encroacher bush today. This has several main products: Charcoal for international markets as well as biochar for carbon removal certificates. Jochen Bard and Marie Plaisir from Fraunhofer IEE, Germany, reported on their progress within a South African Power-to-Fuels project. At last, Natangue Shafudah from UNAM highlighted the importance of integrating renewable energy sources into the Namibian energy system.
Overall the day saw fruitful discussions and potentials to connect for students and researchers. UNAM and IER concluded the conference under the prospect of future collaborations and further research on combining biomass from the encroacher bush and hydrogen production in Namibia.
All materials are available on github freely:
Presentations from the conference: https://github.com/IER-Hy4Daures/Namibian-PtX-Conference
Fact Sheets: https://github.com/IER-Hy4Daures/Fact-Sheets
