Yvonne Mose — transcript

MOMA Renewable Energy

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:05 Greetings ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 47 of the African do podcast. Today we're very privileged to have with us Ivon Mos from MoMA renewables energy and it's a privilege to have Ivonne as a guest because she speaks to renewable energy and energy in general which tends to be a sector or an area that you don't see enough local participation. would like to see a lot more. She has a very innovative uh thing that she does and we'll hear more about Ivonne and about renewables in in a Kenyan context. So, welcome. Look forward to an exciting episode. Ivonne, welcome to the African Do podcast.
Thank you so much.
So, um I think we'll get to MoMA renewables um shortly, but I think let's start by getting to know Ivonne the person. Yeah. Uh who are you? um where do you how do you find yourself and as an entrepreneur? What did you study? Um where were you raised? What are your inspirations?

1:08
Uh thank you so much for the introduction. So as you said my name is Ivon Mos and I am a daughter, I'm a wife and most importantly I'm also a survivor of gender based violence. So that's one of the things that drive who I am and what [clears throat] I do. Um I was raised in Kissy Kissy County
uh whereby we lived with my mom and my dad and my other siblings. I have about I have one brother and two other sisters.
So I remember growing up in a situation whereby
uh we used charcoal mostly and firewood for cooking and when we wanted to prepare meals faster we would use kerosin and that will be indoors.
So growing up I was very passionate also about the environment. I went to Tanga girls uh primary school where I started the first environmental club. Back then it really didn't mean much to me other than I really hated to see how dirty it got when it rained and the u drains got a lot of soil. So I formed a group and we used to go after classes and clean up the gutters and the and the drain drain drainage system. But slowly I feel like

2:15 that built to who I was later in campus. I studied natural resource management.
Where was that? Which campus? Oh, at the University of Aldor.
Okay.
Yes. And after that I was lucky enough to get an internship as the at the Kissy County government where I worked with the department of environment and that was when they they were developing the Kissy County um climate change policy. M
so from there I moved uh to the department of energy and later on I got my first job with an NGO called to Jakazi humanitarian program whereby I was the project manager in charge of developing the Kissy County um uh energy plan. So from there I was in charge of just doing the community mobilization uh stakeholder mapping and doing the key informant interviews and other forms of um surveys and through that I met uh my

3:04 co-founder Jeremiah and he was trying to make um ethanol from organic waste.
Okay. And I remember when we were doing the the surveys for the county energy plan, one of the thing that the that the document was really focusing on was trying to see the clean cooking statistics because um previously we were very focused on electrification rather than the other methods of clean cooking even if it all falls under the department of energy uh with the county government. So from there I got really interested cuz I talked to some households um both in Meu and in Kissy and most of them were even using um polythin bugs to be able to light fire so that they can be able to cook for their families and uh some of them were using cold wood firewood which will emit a lot of smoke. So that really ignited a fire need to try and figure out how to be able to solve for this problem and it also just it was like a moment that also took me back to my childhood.

4:04
Okay. So from there I approached um Jeremiah and I asked him whether he would be interested in working in the clean cooking space which he was since for him the most important thing was trying to make um ethanol out of food waste so that um ethanol production doesn't compete with uh food security cuz in most countries like in Brazil and other countries um they use corn to make ethanol and here in Kenya maize is a staple food. So also approaching maybe if I go right now to LA London and tell someone hey give me your mis make you your fuel I would actually be chased out very fast. So it was when I think we combined the clean cooking and um u the ethanol uh fuel. So that's how mom renewable um energy basically started.

4:49
Interesting. So uh now I guess is a perfect time to introduce more renewable uh energy and and so you your premise fundamentally is that you make ethanol out of food waste. Is is that fair enough? Is that is that does that define it or how would you define it?
Um uh yes that's actually fair enough. That defines it. So I will just add the caveat of organic waste and not necessarily food waste. Okay.
Organic waste that's rich in sugars and carbohydrates.
Mhm.
Yes.
So you use organic waste rich in food in sugars and carbohydrates to make ethanol.
Yes.
Okay. Now Kenya has a big waste problem, right? Uh so maybe before we even get to So I I find that quite innovative because you're sol you're solving for the waste and at the same time solving for the energy and the byproducts. What what happens to the byproducts?

5:47
Uh the byproducts are very rich in uh protein since they've gone through the fermentation process. Yes. So we turn that further into animal feed.
Oh, excellent.
Yes.
Good. So let's speak a bit about let's speak a bit about one the opportunity. Yeah. That led you to this and the journey of setting up once you contextualize the opportunity. How how how did it start into where you are today? Uh okay. Yeah. So we started um at the height of COVID. Yes. So that was back in uh end of 2019 uh beginning of 2020 and there was a shortage of hand sanitizers. So the government was issuing waiverss for companies who could produce the hand sanitizers and hand sanitizers are basically ethanol since they're 99% ethanol. So that's how we started. uh we saw the gap in the market and we saw it was an easy entry for us u because the certifications needed for producing ethanor are quite expensive and quite extensive. So we started the first six months we produced the hand sanitizers sold some to the county government and from there once the market stabilized and we couldn't

6:57 compete with the more uh developed uh players in the market we decided to go back to what was or what is why we we started the business which was clean cooking. So we started at Naki village at the Nachaki market in Ky County and we used to take um the food um the food waste or the organic waste that's left behind after every market day. So that will be fruits that will be anything rich in carbohydrates like um potatoes. Uh we will take bananas. We will take um tomatoes. So anything that had a lot of sugars and it wouldn't it couldn't be sold. And what we did is that we bought at from the market traders themselves since we're based at the CDF building in the market. So at the end of the day, we bought it from the traders themselves at one shilling a kg. So that will prevent them from selling to us something that's still good like food that's still good

7:48 and they will still sell to other customers. So that's how we started. And then um especially in Kenya, you you spoke about the food waste. Um about 30% of all the food that we produce actually goes to waste. um 10% more goes to waste in in transportation in logistics. So sometimes you even find tracks of tomatoes or trucks carrying food uh when they get to the market everything is just sp so they just dump it and leave. So you find a pile of food waste just lying around especially on market days. So that's one of the things that really encouraged us to start and be based at the market. uh when we grew we moved um towards the several other markets that was around Nachi but we realized that the cost of logistics was actually higher than the cost of the raw material which for for us as a business did not did not really make sense uh moving

8:38 forward and also in terms of our scaling plan. So we looked for another plan which uh was to partner with food processors. So these food processors are processors who um maybe work with fruits or vegetables um and they produce things like like in Kissy we've partnered with a Kissy banana processing plant and they work with um bananas and you know the problem with bananas is as soon as one starts ripening it has like a ripple effect the rest also start ripening and they work mostly with green bananas. So we off take all the all the ripened overripened bananas. We off take the fruit pills and clippings and we turn that into bioeanol. And also scaling forward, we're planning on doing decentralized systems whereby we'll be partnering with food processors. Uh partnering with big farms like in Kin Eong, we have like a really huge uh pineapple farm. Uh even in Thika, there

9:27 are very big uh pineapple farms like there's Kakuzi and other farms [clears throat] that are that have a lot of waste when it comes to harvesting harvesting season. So that's the plan moving forward and uh we believe that that holds the biggest key of our scaling uh plan because also with that you can be able to even partner with the different municipal governments be based at the municipal markets especially the big ones which have which produce a lot of organic waste at the end of the day and therefore we'll also gain uh we'll be offering two solutions which is uh ethanol for clean cooking and um waste management basically uh hence we'll be
reducing the amount of food waste that goes goes into the landfills and has causing a lot of greenhouse gas emissions through methane.

10:11
Okay.
Yes.
Okay. Clear. Now, let's go into the science of it. Uh we'll come back to the business of of Momo, but let's go into the science. Maybe walk us through uh for the benefit of the audience who may not have interacted or do not contextualize that the waste that they have that is rich in carbohydrates and sugars could turn into energy. So let's you've used a good example of overripe bananas. So let's start there. You have a bunch of overripe bananas. Walk us through the science of it until you end up with the ethanol.
Okay. Uh that's a really great uh question. So once we get the overripe bananas from the food processor, what we do is we peel them. So the pills are chopped up into small pieces and they go into a different container with enzymes and yeast. And then the fruit itself is crushed and then uh water is added and then um of course water enzymes and yeast. So this ends up forming an ideal situation for the yeast to act on the on

11:18 the pills and and and on the fruits and hence what comes out of it after 72 hours what comes out of it is considered to be beer because it's about 15% alcohol. So after that process we then sieve off the solids and those are the solids that we now use to make the animal feeds because after the fermentation process the yeast acting on them they end up to be very rich in protein and then now for the liquids are taken to through a distillation process.
So the first distillation process is just it's just basically a tank and heat.
Yeah.
So you heat up the alcohol. Alcohol boils at a different level than water. So mostly it's the alcohol that leaves the that leaves the the um how's it called the liquid waste

11:59
and then of course there'll be a percentage of water. So for the first distillation process you get about 70 60 to 70% of alcohol and then from there you can take it through rectification which is basically just another process of distillation.
Okay.
And then from there you get um the proofing that you need. So for us we need up to um we need up to 90%. Actually we normally go up to about 96%. But you find companies that do alcohol it's the same process that alcohol goes to but alcohol goes only up to 40%. So for us we take it the step further.
Okay. [snorts]
So if we needed it to go to 99% like when you were making the the hand sanitizer and needed it at 99.9% then you just put it through a molecular se for it to get to that percentage. So yeah. So us at 96% we take it out we blend it with the other processes since we have we run a batch process so we blend it with the with the other products from the rest of the day uh and then from there we can um denaturize it we we use denotenia but you can use

13:00 things like kerosene and the other denaturerants in the market and we put color on it and that's to prevent people from drinking it.
Yeah.
Yeah. So that's basically the process that we take to make the alcohol
and and what is the use of the product in the sense that who would would come to you to buy the ethanol?
Uh the product is used mainly for cooking uh like a cooking fuel. Okay. So you know a company like Coco Networks which is the biggest um ethanol cook stove and fuel distributor in Kenya. They have the blue stoves and the blue vibes that go to the market. Coco
Coco K. Yeah I know them. Yeah. So the fuel that is used on their stove is ethanol.
So that's the fuel that we make. It's used in the clean cooking space. But the other industrial uses of course in the pharmaceuticals it's used as a solvent. It can be used also as a raw material for making things like hand sanitizers or methylated spirit. So it does have other uses. It's just that for us our company mission is to be able to contribute to the clean cooking space in Kenya.

14:03
And do you supply cocoa today?
Uh currently not. uh we haven't gotten to the capacities at which the um they'll be willing to even offtake from us. We're still uh we're considered a small player in the market currently.
So let's speak to that capacity. What is that capacity that would make you be able to supply people like cocoa or large industries that consume uh consume what are producing today and what would you need to produce in order to supply these these uh big players like you said?
Okay. Yeah. So the first um client B2B client that we're looking into is actually a company called Emoto.
So they're also in the clean cooking space, but they are smaller compared to Coco Networks. Okay.

14:48
So currently they are developing a carbon credits project in Ky County and they need about 10,000 L every month of the fuel. [snorts] So that's what we're currently building towards. We're currently at 4,500 L. And we're building towards to get to a point where we can be able to um to supply them with the 10,000 L from Ky. They'll be going to Ougis and Home Bay, meaning they'll need around 30,000 L uh of ethanol a month. So slowly we'll be growing with them. The national demand for ethanol right now is about 300,000 liters, which
annually monthly.
Monthly. Okay.
Yes. Which they're currently getting from imports, I believe, from uh um Uganda. And there's also other small uh Kenyan players who are contributing to uh to um supplying them with the with

15:33
Do you know that the do you know the mix of the import versus local production?
Um imports uh uh attract a 25% uh tariff importation tariff. But with local production of course uh you have the advantage of not attracting any tariffs. And what what percentage of of ethanol consumption the 300,000 liters monthly you talk about what percentage any even hazard I guess of what what we are uh what we are importing
um I'm not very sure about the percentages so maybe I can get back to you on that later
but the fact is there is an opportunity
yeah there is an opportunity and I was actually also speaking almost towards Koko so with Koko networks Um the national demand uh here both here in Kenya and in Rand is about six 5 to 6 million liters a month. But currently in Kenya

16:27
5 to 6 million
yeshu
but currently in Kenya they're currently doing um about 2 million liters a month and that's because of the ethanol ban ethanol importation ban that's currently in place. U one of their tanks they have regional tanks because they're in different regions of the country. The original tanks hold about 100,000 L uh of ethanol. So I think for us to even be able to go to the table and have a discussion with them, we have to be able to produce at least 100,000 liters a month in order to be able to fill a to fill up a tank because I don't think they'll be looking forward to maybe getting different suppliers to fill up one tank. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's what we are building towards. So the demand is there especially locally locally produced ethanol. It's just the the national u local production capacity really hasn't grown to a point where it can meet the local demand.

17:19
Oh wow.
Yes.
Interesting. Now let's come to the capex of that. You've walked us through the the scientific process of how you turn the organic waste. What are you looking at in your space? What did you start with machinery wise? And as you've grown systematically to the 4,500 liters per month that you you current currently do and your short-term ambitions to get to 10, what is the infrastructure in if if we if we were to come to your factory today, what do we see?
Um so how we started is very interesting. Um so it was um school of YouTube. We call it school of YouTube. So we went online see what's needed and the first machine that we had was self-fabricated. So that cost us about let me call it 6 thou 600,000 Kenya shillings. So that's about 500 locally fabricated.

18:12
Yeah. Locally fabricated. And it had a lot of uh
with who? Out of curiosity and local engineering firm or who how do you get to that stage where you see the machine on YouTube
and then you do what? You draw it up yourselves or how do you get to a stage where you draw a machine that you're going to manufact you're going to get manufactured for you? Uh so it's very interesting. So it was mainly my co-founder, my chief of operations and our CTO who sat down see saw what is needed and what could be the equivalent of of that of that industrial machine and then they sat down with we have local artisans who are very
who have so much experience and can actually do things and I think we we underestimate our local artisans. So we start with one of the local artisans and it was just us and them chairing and us being like no we need a jacket that looks like this because mostly with the distillation unit it's just a tank. You need a tank a um it has to be food grade stainless steel so that it's not corroded and you need a fire element.

19:16
So the industrial machines use electricity but for us when we started we started with
kuni. Mhm.
So I know it beats the whole purpose but it was well it was it was what we could afford at the time and what we could be able to do just to prove the concept and then from there we moved to gas and now is when we're moving to to electricity um solar solar electricity mainly. So yeah we started with about $5,000 and then from there we grew uh so it was um also self-funded uh we bootstrapped as co-founders and remember back then I I had a job so most of my income was actually going into the company. So I actually quit my job in 2023. That's when I decided to be full-time in the company. But

19:58
uh throughout the time it was like most of our funds was what was sustaining the business and then from then on is when we started playing the majorly just the startup game. So the first of ESO to actually believe in us was called um orans. It's a it was called project of fun and it was run by pink and e for impact. So they gave us our first funding which was $10,000 and from there is where the second machine is was still self-fabricated but it was made with better material and it was done a little bit better but still us and those same Joali artisans just sitting down and figuring out how to do it and I I remember the most complicated component of it was the column the distillation column so anyways yeah so it was

20:40
you self fabricated the distillation column
yes it was mainly like two pipes with a water jacket.
So yeah, so that ended up being quite interesting and I think we just proved to ourselves that this is something that we're able to do. But then we realized that if we wanted to scale, we we needed a machine that's more efficient and that meant us um purchasing a machine.
So we looked locally and it was really difficult to find especially now things that are as complicated as the distillation column. So most of the machines options that we could get will either come from India or it will come from China.
Okay.
So local fabrication really we thought that it wasn't really in on the books for us and it's something that we really struggled with trying to find different ways to actually get our machine mostly locally produced. So even went to maybe we should import only the column and the valves and then the tanks could could be made locally because there are so many fabrication um fabricators in Kenya. So yeah, it's still something that we're

21:41 going to and we were lucky enough to get um a bit of funding of five to 5 million Kenya shillings from KCDF
and that's what we're currently using to be able to increase our capacity to meet Emoto's uh demand for Q1 next year.
Okay.
Yes. So it has been quite a journey, an exciting one uh hair pulling journey, but it's it's what made us get to where we are right now. you know, you you're speaking to some very interesting elements. Yeah.
I think what I like about what you've just said is one how you you speak to the one innovation, you know, you need to do something, you know how to do it, you get the knowledge to do it, but you also find these local artisans. Yeah. And you work with them. Yeah. In a knowledge sharing way. Yeah. you're building, you want to extract the ethanol. You'd love to use gas, but you don't. So, you use firewood and you design something that works. There's a

22:44 lot there's a lot to unpack there, you know, for someone to to to unpack and actually build on and see how can you empower, you know, I see the like the artisans you're talking about. Imagine if you're able to get them uh software that enables them to draw, you know, engineering fabrication document documents in in a more robust way that they can then use to fabricate what they need to fabricate
or get to a situation where you're saying you want to make fabricate the distillation column locally and you're able to get the specifications of what you need and then get a fabricator to to do that for you locally. That's the navana. So you are you're you're doing a lot more than just uh uh meeting your need. So let's speak about um this whole space of renewable energy. Um I like what it is that you're doing because I like how it has evolved. you

23:46 know, you go in and you work with Kisumu Ki County Municipality in that you see what's happening on the ground, your source materials. You you probably get to learn about what is available in terms of source materials by working for the county.
So, let's speak about if I was to ask you to take your your your thinking a bit national. Yeah. and look about uh contextualize for us the opportunity in your words of what this space that you find yourself in is
I think um I do get overwhelmed when thinking about the space and what potential lies in there because as I mentioned we are primarily working with waste and that's even to work towards um as a as Kenya or even as Africa we're trying to work towards food security. So as a business we're not trying to do anything that would negate the efforts that are currently being made to to move towards that.

24:47
So uh currently we're working with the uh with the food processors. So in Kenya there are several food processors who make uh juices, jams, uh crisps and they all have um food waste which currently they are paying people or they're paying u waste management companies to come and take it and take it to landfills because for most of them they currently don't have a more sustainable way of getting rid of the waste. There's also municipal waste but also which comes with its own politics especially now you know with government comes politics. So, it's um it's something that we're still trying to navigate as we move forward because it's a partnership that we're still very interested in. So, that's a whole other um a whole other opportunity out there and that's that goes to thousands of tons of waste a month. Tens of thousands of tons of waste a month. Uh when we

25:38 look at the serial board there, let let me call it thousands of metrics of tons of maze that gets burnt even at the ports because they are affected by aphletoxin
and they can't be consumed by humans. That's still really good feed stock for making bioethanol.
Wow. It is okay.
Yes. And also if now we look moving further, uh there's uh this um crop called sweet. So the stock is very sugary almost like a sugar cane and the seeds can be used for animal feed and they mainly grow on asult. So like in the northeastern where not all the land actually a lot of the land is not arable and a lot of the land is just sitting idle. So also if um if it's a project that can be uptaken, you can be able to provide another source of

26:26 income for the people who live in northeastern because this is um you're giving them they're basically planting a crop that you are going to offtake and you have contracts with them and at the end of the day they still have the animals they still have the animal feed the it called the grains from the sweet zum and from our production process since we'll set up a decentralized production unit there they can get the animal feed uh which will which will be which will come uh as our raw materials or as as our byproducts from our production process. So there is a lot of potential to grow and also from the from our processes. One of the things that you get one of the byproducts is CO2 from the fermentation process. So there's also an opportunity to be able to uh capture the CO2 and scrub it and it can be sold in the market. So there's so many different opportunities that just

27:16 comes with this one opportunity that to be honest um some sometimes it um how's it called? Sometimes I just wake up with a cold. So just thinking about how we how I'll be able to capture all that and yeah feeling small like I'm just a small girl from Kissy County,
you know. Um, allow me to express some frustration in and in and maybe I don't know if it's in a positive way because as I listen to you talk about your business. Rarely do I talk about businesses where I find that the loop is complete. And let me tell you what I mean by that.
I see your loop being complete. Yeah. Your your feed stock is is um waste. Yeah. Now you have even brought in the the issue of aphletox in maze you know uh which is um is a problem we have you know maze confiscated because it has a but that's your feed stock. So you're using something that should be thrown away and you've made it into a viable product. That's thing number one. In the process of you doing what you're

28:26 doing you're producing carbon dioxide. Yeah. which is another viable product. Yeah. From a waste feed stock into now you have not finished your your product. From that product you go and you produce the ethanol but then end there because your byproduct could be manipulated to have use as animal feed or package. So basically from what is a waste product you have the opportunity to produce like three or four viable products. One would think that you have um funders um banging at your door.
I would I would think so too.
But the reality
ground different ground.
Yeah. Yeah,
tell us about the ground as pertains to your funding journey.
Uh our funding journey has been interesting to say the least. So um we're lucky enough that we have gotten a lot of or some uh players in the market especially entrepreneurship support organizations that do see our vision and have helped us grow in terms of our business plan and just thinking um through what we're doing like the mechanics of what we're doing. But um as we are trying to raise funds uh we're told we need more volumes um in terms of

29:57 our by our ethanol production. As I mentioned we're at 4,500 L. So you're told you need more volume
for us to get the volume we need funding. So it's like a a chicken and egg situation like what comes first
and then also with I think especially in the manufacturing
space especially now when it comes to innovation it's not uh your day-to-day brick and mortar you get this is not like a hardware or you get like at the end of the day you're not going to be like oh so the next month this is how much I'm going to get it's today I'm making 10,000 or 5,000 liters if you give me $150,000 I'm going to make 50,000 liters. And I'm going to 10x my production, 10x my revenue, uh probably even 10x my

30:40 actually my profit will even grow bigger because I'm I'm not going to like my staff expenses and most of my operative costs are not going to increase as much when the when my production increases. So it becomes really difficult on how we are we communicate um in the space. And sometimes I think that maybe it's me or it's us as a company who really don't know how to communicate our vision or may or maybe it's just that we're entering the wrong rooms.
You get so to people who really don't understand what we are looking for or what we are after cuz I do see the potential in what we're doing and I do see the opportunity for exponential growth but also communicate that communicating that I think to me becomes a bit difficult.

31:26
Okay.
Yes. I hear you. And while we're sitting here and based on what you've just said, let's dream a dream. Yeah. Uh let's assume that funding is not an issue. Yeah. You can do what you want, how you want, to the scale you want.
What do you do? [sighs and gasps]
Okay, that's a good dream. uh what I do currently where we are at in Kissy uh the factory really hasn't gotten to a point whereby they're utilizing the full potential because they can do up to two metric tons of bananas a day. So they're also uh growing. So in my in a perfect world they would have met they would have met the two t metric tons a day production capacity meaning that we would have about uh let me call it um about 60 to 100

32:15 tons a day of waste. 100 tons a day will give us 10,000 liters a day of bioethanol. Uh also from there we will have we will have a bulk purchasing agreement uh for molasses with the sugar factories that are around us since we are in KC which is considered one of the sugar belts of Kenya. So we we have mara sugar we have chileil and other sugar factories that currently don't know what to do with the with the molasses or even with the technical alcohol which comes from the production of um of sugar. So we will be able to oftake all that and turn it into organic waste. Oh, sorry. Turn it into bioethanol. We'd also have a working uh contract with the serals board of Kenya and we'll be able to off take all the afflattoxin mazes that comes into the country and turn that into bioethanol. [snorts] So with all that with just that even let's say let's

33:10 call it a company like Delonte I have right now they're coming up with innovative solutions of how to get rid of their waste. But if we can offer them a solution that really doesn't require them to cap to uh to inject some or a lot of capital into sorting for it, I believe that we'll have a very strong case for them to be able to give us the the organic waste. So I believe that we'll be taking all this waste from different people and just with that that will be about 2 million liters a month of bioeththanol 2 to 3 million liters a month and then from there we can have a growing uh like out growers um contract with uh farmers from Isol from Trana all these regions in northeastern that have nonarable land and we can be able to also set up a production unit in that area and also still get a lot of ethanol from there. So I feel like in a perfect world in the next 3 years we will be able to produce

34:07 about 5 million lit a month of bioethanol and that's just scratching the surface basically.
Wow.
Yes.
That's a great dream to dream.
What's the number that that plugs itself to that dream? [sighs]
Uh to the
what's the number you need
to the 3 million
financially? Yeah.
Financially to the three million. What what what are you looking for or what would you be looking for if you were to actualize that dream?
Okay, so to actualize that dream, we will need capital injection of about $15 million the 3 million liters.
Okay,
but for us to even now uh with our strategic plan currently our plan is to move to about 100 to 120,000 liters in the next two years. So that will need capital injection of about per month.

34:53
Yeah. Per month. Okay. that will need capital injection of about $300,000 $300 to $500,000 which will support both the capital expenses for the machines and the operational expenses.
That sounds doable.
$300,000 is about
just [snorts] about uh 60 million shillings thereabouts.
Yeah, give or take.
Yeah. Uh no, no, more like 40 40.
More than more like 40
just under 50. Yeah. Yeah. Just under $50 million. Uh 30. Yeah. And and $40 million. Yeah. About $39 million. Uh $39 million shillings.
Oh, 39 million shillings.
Yeah. I mean that that sounds doable. I think uh not for me, but it sounds doable by Kenyan standards. Uh uh and it should be something that that we're looking at. I think we let's continue to have this conversation. So guys, 39 million shillings. Anyone out there, bankers who are always calling us to talk shows and road shows, uh, if you have the money, please. Ivonne is looking and she wants to create bioethan.

35:57
Yeah. Reach out to me with this contact details.
Yeah. No, we'll get to that. [laughter]
So, no, I I mean, wow, what a story. Um, I I I come from the coast, you know. Um and I think about I'm just listening to what you're saying and thinking about um when you walk I don't think there's any market in in there's anyone who's listening who's walked into a Kenyan market you know and hasn't either um somewhere around the corner or seen the waste scenario that you talk about overripe fruit you know it it it's part and parcel of Kenyan living and you're now potentially providing a solution for that. Yeah. I think one one of the struggles I have is when I feel that dots are just not connecting even when the dots seem rather obvious, you know. Um I would have expected that you would be your push to grow it would be it would be the opposite of what you're experiencing now. you know, people would be pushing you to say, "Listen, the

37:10 funding is not an issue. How do we get you to 10,000 liters a month and onward, you know, in in the next month, we want to move to 20,000 liters. You know, you you sound like a business that is ripe for month-on-month doubling of of volume. You know, move you to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 40, 40 to 80, 80 to 160, and so on. You sound like that. Am I wrong in seeing it like that?
No, you're correct. Because um the learnings that we are gaining right now or the learnings that you get as you grow almost remain the same even as you scale. And I feel like we've done the hardest part which is piloting which is
discovering how to turn different types of waste into the bioethanol. So yeah um and also when it comes to like training the staff and the SOPs. So that's something those are measures that we have already putting in place and we're currently putting in place um some of it. So yeah as you grow it's basically the same learning so it becomes very easy to grow and double on a monthly basis as you had mentioned.

38:14
Okay.
Yeah.
Ethanol blending
with fuel is a big thing in in some markets globally. I know it's big in the states. It's big in Brazil.
Even in Uganda.
In Uganda.
Yes. So let's speak a bit about the maybe speak to us first uh about what what ethanol blending is and maybe let's speak a bit of why Kenya is not really there in that ethanol blending uh question.
Uh okay yeah so ethanol blending is basically blending uh fuel the fossil fossil fuel with ethanol. So there are specifications like um there's E15 there's 10 there's 12. So that's the percentage of ethanol that should be in every liter sorry every liter of the of the fuel.
So I in um Uganda they're actually doing it for the diesel specifically for the trucks. M

39:09
so I remember being in a forum sitting in a forum whereby now the biggest problem that most Kenyan trucks are facing is that in Kenya they are uptaking pure diesel and then when they cross the border to go to to Uganda and they fuel up there they're uptaking fuel that has been blended with ethanol. So of course it's um it's not going in the in the short term it's not going to have like any adverse effects but also in the long term it's going to have effects on the vehicles. So in Kenya I think back in I want to say 82. We came up with a policy whereby all our vehicles were supposed to be manufactured to a spec whereby they could be able to uptake blended fuels.
But that's something that as a nation

39:51
we really haven't caught up to it. We really haven't gotten to the point where that's possible. And I feel like one of the main reasons is that because
um there's no local production that can be able to meet that demand. Because right now if you import ethanol by the time it's landing at the port it's going to cost you about 90 Kenya shillings and that's without per liter. Yes. And that's be that's without um
transporting it to the different regions and that's you're buying it uh using dollar the dollar currency meaning also the dollar fluctuations are going to to affect the price. And then also now if you add that caveat to blending it means that even the the blended fuel is going to be either more expensive or still remain the same um price as the current um fuel that we're using.

40:42
So we have landed ethanol at 90 shillings per liter. What would we have finished product bioethanol from you selling at? I just want to see the spread. uh by ethanol product like the
like your ethanol
at the end your your your end price is what
u our end price currently to the end consumer it's about um 90 shillings.
Okay.
Yeah. So we do 90 shillings to the kiosks that we sell through and the kiosks sell sell it to the end consumer for 100 shillings.
And if I was to bulk buy
if you're to bulk buy we will go up to 85 shillings per liter.
Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
So yeah. So um let's say in in countries like the US where they have a lot of corn and a lot of grain and they produce the ethanol from the grain uh the ethanol ends up being inexpensive less expensive. So even with them blending the fuel actually the fuel costs go lower because then you're blending it with this other um fuel which is ethanol which is

41:39
inexpensive compared to the fossil fuel.
So yeah. Yeah. So I feel like as Kenya we first need to grow our capacity to be able to meet national demand because also you can't have some um some how's it called some fuel companies having the blended fuel and some not having it meaning that your car will be consuming different kinds of fuel depending on the fuel station that you're going to.
Yeah. So we'll need to first meet the national um the national demand before we can even talk about uh blended fuel. But even before we get to blended free, I mean just the people you have talked about, Coco Networks and just what they're doing in terms of clean cooking is already is demand that we're yet to meet if I was to understand you right. Yes.

42:23
Before the podcast we are talking about or you even mentioned it here. You said that Coco Networks is 6 million liters a month. Is that correct?
And they're importing a large percentage of that.
Yes. Actually like 90 90%. Yeah. Yeah.
90% of of the 6 million liters.
Wow. So, the national demand for ethanol is more it's it's way more than the 300,000 liters we talked about uh monthly because if you factor in the cocoa networks, you you must be talking about maybe several million liters monthly, you know.
Mhm.
Oh, man. What an interesting business. I I'm a bit taken aback. You've given me so much to think about. Uh and I think the audience too, but I think what what like a lot of these situations I see more I I tend to be a bit of a glass half full person. So I see it as a greater opportunity. But I do think that it's it's a conversation. I'm really glad we had this conversation. uh Ivonne and um maybe now I'll give you a chance

43:34 you know to tell um the audience where can they find uh MoMA renewable energy what are your handles where what are your socials uh any funders out there of any kind local large institutional uh who may want to work with you or invest in you where can they find you um so that we can we can get people to hear about you and and and get to speak to you.
Okay. Yeah. So MMO renewable energy is currently based in Kissy County at the Kissy Agricultural Training Center and even as we grow we're looking to expand but currently that's where our main offices are. So you can catch us there on LinkedIn. We are MMA renewable energy on uh Instagram. I believe we are also MMA renewable energy. And you can also just reach out to me on my personal handle on LinkedIn which is um Ivonne

44:26 Mos and also our email is info@moma.co.k.
Excellent. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a phenomenal business. Um, and it I I feel very privileged to have had the the the privilege of speaking to Ivonne and learning more about this space of bioethanol and what it can mean for us as an economy, as a country and how great the opportunity is. So that was episode 47 of the African Duke uh podcast where we speak to excellent Africans executing excellently and it was a great privilege to have Ivonne Mos and to hear and learn about MoMA renewable energy. We look forward to uh showing you the episode and uh see you next time. Thank you very much.