Last year the United States produced 3.9 billion gallons of ethanol from corn. Brazil produced 4.2 billion gallons over the same period all from sugar and mollasses.
The United States Department of Agriculture has just published a report entitled ‘The Economic Feasibility of Ethanol Production from Sugar in the United States’ concluding that at the moment it’s not economical to produce ethanol from sugarcane and sugar beet given the price of the two crops, the costs of conversion and the price of gasoline.
The following table from the report shows that the Brazilians are clearly the most efficient produces of ethanol from sugarcane.
Of course, in a study published last year Cornell University Professors Pimentel and Patzel have argued that producing ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy following an analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants (Natural Resources Research Vol. 14:1, 65-76). I don’t think they included sugarcane in their study.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Plant efficiency is important when considering the input/output ratios of energy. Corn for example is one of the least efficient sources of ethanol. Sugar beets and sugarcane produce double the ethanol yield per acre compared to corn. The energy input to make ethanol from corn (growing, transporting, and distilling) uses almost as much energy contained in the ethanol itself. Sugarcane yields eight times as much energy that is needed to produce ethanol compared to corn. Unfortunately, with growing fuel demands in tropical countries like Brazil, fuel demand translates into increased sugarcane production, meaning a demand for more fields, resulting in reductions in rainforest area (Murray 2005).
Pimental has a history of opposing the use of corn in the US to produce ethanol and in that case, the energy input/output ratio is about 1, so his argument in that regard is valid. Corn ethanol has always been recognised as a way of subsidising US farmers indirectly via renewable energy. However to state that wood biomass to ethanol is not efficient sounds like a sweeping generalisation. What’s the source of wood, was it waste wood, how much fertiliser was used in growing the wood and so on. An analysis of energy in ethanol from woody biomass grown in the Australian wheatbelt estimated an energy output/input of over 6. In terms of gross energy content to energy input, the ratio is over 40.
Growing woody biomass in Australian wheatbelt doesn’t require more clearing of native vegetation, but if an industry could be successfully established it would diversify the agricultural economy. Surely this would be a good result on its own.
And of course there’s always forestry. In Scandinavian countries, forest residues and thinnings are an important part of the energy economy. In Australia, we are so enlightened, we prefer to burn our thinnings and residues in the forest rather than put this material to a good use. Gosh, we are so clever.
We have over 90 million tonnes of annual vegetation thickenning that can be used for biodiesel but the green ‘future eaters’ have consistently opposed this option.
Indeed, Keto et al went so far as to exclude any and all native forest waste (thinnings) from the sustainable energy programmes.
Interestingly, this exclusion appears to be the prime reason for the failure of the Rocky Point Co-Generation project. The feed stock was limited to Bargasse and wood chip from approved developments in the Brisbane Gold Coast corridor.
And this latter source tended to come in large volumes rather than on a just-in-time basis. And this produced storage problems and also some significant waste disposal problems for water and ash.
If the feedstock had been from forest thinnings the supply would have been matched to demand with no storage issues. And the resulting ash could have been backloaded to the forest where the ash would amount to a very important and low cost fertilising agent that would further boost forest growth (up to 6 times greater according to CSIRO’s John Raison) and improve leaf nutrition for dependent species.
The housing developments had no use for recycled wood ash and these disposal costs blew the backside out of the entire $60 million project.
Good one, Aila, ever thought of ‘helping/saving’ Al Quaida instead?
I use wood ash from my wood stove in my garden( on the lawn). It is an excellent fertilizer, it suits my soil because it is a bit alkaline.
You can also use wood ash to make lye, a caustic ingredient used in soap making, table olive leaching etc.
After extracting the lye you have potash, which is high in potassium.
The advantage of sugarcane for ethanol is that the stalks are burned to power the distillation process. When sugarcane is harvested, the stalks are removed from the field, facilitating the process. When corn (maize) is harvested, stalks are left in the field and another energy source is required for distillation. This is a major issue in the economics involved.
“You can also use wood ash to make lye, a caustic ingredient used in soap making”
reminds me of the Beverly hillbillies and Granny in particular.
have a god day
How do l analysis the economic of lye production?
Australia is yet to realise the potential of sugarcane.
New Scientist magazine recently reported that studies conducted by Southern Cross University screened 200 plant types for there ability to lock up carbon dioxide. The trials concluded that a sugarcane variety was the best in the trial, locking up 0.66 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per hectare per year.
The New Scientist magazine reported that there was more potential from sugarcane than growing trees, which lock up land for decades.
Sugarcane offers great potential to meet the world’s energy needs.
A recent National Geographic magazine reported sugarcane is the preferred crop for ethanol production when compared to maize. Sugarcane has a ratio of 1:8 compared to 1:1.3 for fossil –fuel energy used to make ethanol. Look to Brazil to view a successful and effective ethanol industry.
Ethanol fuel in Brazil last week was over 50% cheaper than the price of gasoline (petrol). The Brazilians use up to 100% ethanol in their cars. The Australian Holden Commodore is exported to Brazil and runs on 25% ethanol. The rest of the world is developing ethanol based fuel industries, to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
After visiting sugarcane industries overseas (in the past few years), the following conclusions become obvious to all:
• The Australian sugar industry requires government to lay the foundations for the industry to develop value adding opportunities; not a handout.
• Australian sugar industry leadership need a vision and develop a plan for the future.
The Australian sugar industry is efficient in the crop production and harvesting areas by world standards; with many overseas sugarcane industries aspiring to achieve the efficiencies and environmental accountability we expect.
It is time for the Australian public to wake up and realise the opportunities that sugarcane offers.