Greenhouse gas savings potential of sugar cane bio-energy systems

Published Date
Journal of Cleaner Production
March 2010, Vol.18(5):412–418, doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.12.012

Author 

• Thu Lan T. Nguyen ^a,b
• Shabbir H. Gheewala ^b,,
• Masayuki Sagisaka ^c

• aDepartment of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Denmark
• bThe Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
• cInstitute of Science for Safety and Sustainability, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan

Received 13 October 2008. Revised 2 September 2009. Accepted 18 December 2009. Available online 4 January 2010. 

Abstract

One of the major justifications for bio-energy systems is their low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to fossil-energy ones. Transforming a sugar mill into a bio-energy plant would contribute to climate change mitigation via the extraction of renewable electricity and ethanol. This study takes the case of the sugar industry in Thailand and identifies scenario options that offer GHG reduction benefits. Improving efficiency in electricity generation from sugar cane residues e.g. excess bagasse and cane trash is such a beneficial option. Furthermore, extracting ethanol in a so-called bio-refinery, where the co-product stillage is utilized for energy, tends to magnify the potential benefit. The largest savings potential achieved with extracting ethanol from surplus sugar versus current practice in the sugar industry in Thailand amounts to 14 million tonnes CO₂e a year. This cannot be realized in practice until the carbon debt from land conversion is repaid, which takes 4.5–7 years, assuming that the land converted is grassland.

Keywords

Greenhouse gas

Sugar cane

Bio-energy

Ethanol

Renewable electricity tend

---

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

 Table 1

Table 1.

 Table 2

Table 2.

Fig. 5.

• ∗ 
  Corresponding author. Tel.: +662 4708309-10; fax: +662 8729805.

Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

For further details log on website :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652609004065