Female Condom Redux

In a story for Time.com, I revisited the story of Uganda bringing back the female condom. Partly this was because I got some more interesting reporting after submitting a story I wrote for The Lancet. The big issue for me is this: How much credibility you ought to give nongovernmental organizations that demand a particular initiative? Do they really think that women need the female condom? Or do they see a potential female condom campaign as a source of revenue?

My suspicion in the case of Uganda's female condom initiatve is that it's the latter. It's difficult to imagine a product that is poorer suited to fight HIV/AIDS in Uganda, chiefly because the virus is spreading most quickly among people who have more than one longterm partner. Those are the people least likely to use any form of protection at all.

Now there's more literature coming out that lends credence to something it's impossible to ignore when you're on the ground. Local NGOs are often a way for their founders to make a living, and the altruistic part comes later. The people who run them are entrepreneurs more than anything else, skilled in the ways of grant-writing and development-speak. This has been going on for years and ought to come as no surprise -- one of the key indicators of a charitable group's efficiency these days is the percentage of your donation that actually gets to the person you wanted to help. It is hard to fault someone who has the initiative to make some cash, but as in Uganda's case, the trouble comes when the campaigns they preach may actually hinder development or the fight against HIV/AIDS.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I wait for various strings to publish stories I wrote about jatropha curcas, a wild plant that has been hailed as the next great step in the biofuels revolution. Overzealous advocates of jatropha (who in many cases have a financial stake in the plant's success) persuaded poor farmers to plant jatropha based on claims that would be impossible to meet. It turns out jatropha isn't all it's cracked up to be, and smallholder farmers are the ones paying the price.

Comments

[Simon Collery]

Hi Nick
While I agree with you about jatropha and NGO shenanigans, I have talked with commercial sex workers who think female condoms can be very useful at times but complain that they are very expensive. I admit, I have come across commercial sex workers who say that female condoms are of no use but none of them had actually used them. So I think the issue of whether female condoms may or may not help in reducing HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies is an empirical one. I think it would be unwise to dismiss this technology without further research.
Regards
Simon

[Clive Richardson]

Bio Jet Fuel KBC-JCL model .

THIS IS A LARGE SCALE OPERATIONAL DESIGN THAT MAY BE REPLICATED AT MULTIPLE SUB TROPICAL STRATEGIC REGIONAL LOCATIONS.

While one can hold in high esteem the huge number of professionals and executives who support the promotion of Jatropha Curcas and other TBOS/Biomass opportunities that are targeted to assist the lives of the rural poor we should not be focused on supporting the sustainability of subsistence agriculture.

If we are to promote extensive agricultural improvement of the semi arid rain fed lands of the sub tropical regions we must do so in order to create new industry that impacts to reduce poverty with sustainable life time enhancements. There must be profit.

Professional large scale agricultural extension designed to cultivate, collect and produce desirable quality market demanded products can deliver immense benefits to the rural poor of the developing regions, improve food and fuel security, promote improved water management and above all allow the rural communities access to participate with a new industry model that can deliver sustainable improvements to life.

We are progressing the development of our model for Jatropha Curcas Linn towards being able to represent a complete industry profile that may be replicated at strategic locations throughout the sub tropical regions.

We have identified with Agricultural extension, Biomass, Bio refinery and technology processes that can lead to the delivery of advanced liquid fuels and CHP operations, supporting export and national markets..

Our location in Africa for investigation has been the Kilimanjaro-Arusha region of Tanzania where we feel all the required conditionality's are available for a complete new industry platform.


We can make the following assumptions with reasonable certainty.

• Professional large scale agricultural extension of JCL costs approximately $4000USD/Ha.

• One can expect, on rain fed marginal land, to obtain 40Mt of Biomass/Ha/p.a.( with professional support, moderate rain, deliberate organic fertilizer and plant growth promoters).

• If JCL is inter cropped with Castor about 6% of the harvested biomass (JCL+Castor) will be oil.

• There MAY BE no economic reason for extracting the oil (see below).

• Each Ha of harvest is equal to about 100,000 Kwh of energy. (Wet Biomass 45-55% moisture). (1400 JCL trees/Ha + Castor).

• In direct electricity sales value this is equal to about $3,000USD, when local sales of electricity in Africa are about 3cts per Kwh. (They are much higher but this would be a fair net price for selling into the grid or getting standby Power Purchase Agreement sales, some African PPA's exceed 13cts/Kwh).

• If one extracts the oil (6%) the resulting value of the mix is Oil 23,712Kwh and Biomass 76,288Kwh.

• This is an insufficient ration of market value : economic considerations. Ergo Oil Value (max) = $720USD, Biomass $2288.64. Total added value $8.64.

• Using advanced biomass technology the energy ratio can be changed and market values modified accordingly.

• Energy is introduced (20% of the Biomass value 20,000KwH) in order to reform the biomass into 60% bio oil 20% syngas and 20% char. (Syngas used to run the complete system to all advanced out puts including bio Jet Fuel). • New balance is 80,000Kwh of which 48,000Kwh is Bio oil and the remaining Char + other elements 32,000Kwh.

• The bio oil/advanced liquid fuel is worth about 6.5cts per Kwh while the Char+ is still worth about 3cts/Kwh.

• Ergo we have increased the market values for the products (value added) from $3000USD to $4080. (This is still per Ha of value)

• Over time crude oil prices will rise above an average of 82USD per barrel and this would cause the market value per Kwh to shift accordingly.

NB: The market values of CJO are no more than $360USD for export while the value of Bio Oil/advance liquid fuel is $650 USD FOB as direct export or fuel to use.(August 2009).

• Modification to Bio oil/advanced liquid fuel per Mt is part of the overall technology platform and part of the 20% syngas energy use (costs).

• How much should one pay the farmer for the Biomass at farm gate? A Fair-trade price would be $40USD/Mt or $1600USD per average Ha of Biomass yield.

• Hence the overall market value gain farm gate to wholesale of primary commodities is $2480 per Ha of cultivation.

• It costs $120,000USD Million to professionally cultivate 30,000Ha's of Jatropha until first harvest of Biomass. ($4000/Ha).

• Financed by a special Micro Finance Program. First harvest (2nd year end) costs $48,000,000 to purchase from farmers.

• It may cost up to $3.0 Billion to establish the complete Technology Platform. (30 year + Life span).(PERHAPS SIGNIFICANTLY LESS) See Below.

• And $1.2 Billion for Agricultural extension. (300,000 Ha’s over ten years) +50 year life span.

• Agriculture to Industry and market delivery process value adds $74,400,000 per 30,000Ha/p.a. (Following on from the first harvest opportunity)

• After ten years of professional agricultural extension $744,400,000 per 300,000/Ha/p.a.

• $4.092 Billion is the company operational value added after 10 Years processing operations and 12 years of activity (Projected 2 years build up of complete platform).

o Ergo this is 55 Harvests of 30,000Ha’s that deliver $74,400,000 as Value added).

•The complete Agricultural extension to first harvest and processing opportunity would be

o 2 x 120,000,000 million = $240,000,000 USA Million of Agricultural Extension Costs.
o $3Billion for the complete Harvest Collection and process technologies to CHP and Bio oil/Advanced liquid fuels.
o $48,000,000 Million for first harvest purchase value.
 Total establishment to first process opportunity $3.288 Billion. • Operational platform Costs $3.0 Billion + Loan/Cost of Finance ((Say 7% as soft loan value)).

• Agricultural farm gate value added $2.64 Billion after ten years harvest purchases. (Costs 1.2 Billion of Micro Finance, Repaid after the first 4 years of operating each Ha).

• As the last Micro Finance would be paid off after the end of 15 years we should consider extending the overall project forecasts up to 20 years.

The $3Billion cost is taken from the Rentech website (cost of Biorefinery).

Discussions with other Biorefinery experts suggest lower capital costs, however it is not considered possible to execute large scale agricultural extension of Jatropha Curcas professionally for less than $4000 USD/Ha, or allowance for harvest support, handling or storage.

As illustrated above there is no economic return to be obtained from exporting CJO from least developed regions to advanced economies. Products must be value added with delivery to market at strategic locations.

Emerging policy with certified Bio Jet Fuel production from Biomass using Biorefinery technologies allows for complete industry considerations that may favour the large scale cultivation of Jatropha. However, evaluation of current projects from around the regions of the sub tropics suggests that few promoters have considered a complete agriculture to industry program or the absolute necessity to establish first class quality agricultural activity in order to obtain sustainable Biomass harvests, harvest protection with the logistics to deliver considerable volumes for processing and the related logistics.

The above does not mention GHG emmissons reductions credits but it is as well to note Boeings calculations suggest 73% savings of CO2 when buring bio jet fuel. @$7.00 per tonne (August 09) once there is fuel substution this may deliver significant revenue potentials.

NB: D1 OILS PLC will recover once we have bought the shares for beans.

[Clive Richardson]

WHILE OUR FOCUS HAS BEEN ON KILIMANJARO-ARUSH AND KILIMANJARO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT'S SPECIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONE MOI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND SPECIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONE HAS A SIMILAR PROFILE.