GATINEAU, Que. – Brazil isn’t resting on its laurels when it comes to converting sugar cane into renewable energy.
Already the world’s second leading producer of ethanol, the country is turning its attention to becoming a leader in the generation of bioelectricity.
One-third of the energy value of a sugar cane crop is contained in the liquid cane juice. The juice is used to make sugar and the alcohol required for ethanol production.
The remaining two-thirds is contained in the cane stalk, which was burned in the field until recently. Brazil’s sugar cane crop has traditionally been harvested by hand, which requires burning the foliage to get to the cane.
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These days, half of the crop is harvested by machine, a process that doesn’t require destroying the cane stalk. Within three to four years, most of the crop will be mechanically harvested.
Farmers deliver the dried cane stalks to mills where they are used to generate steam electricity to power ethanol plants. Any excess bioelectricity is sold to Brazil’s utility companies.
“What used to be a nuisance has now turned into a profit centre,” said Joel Velasco, chief representative in North America for UNICA, Brazil’s leading sugar cane industry association, whose members produce 60 percent of the country’s ethanol and sugar.
Sugar cane already meets three percent of the country’s electricity needs and will account for much more in the near future.
“By 2012, it will be 10 to 15 percent of Brazil’s electricity because we’re seeing an exponential growth in the amount of biomass we’re bringing into the mill,” Velasco said in an interview following his speech to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit.
Bioelectricity accounted for about two percent of the sugar cane industry’s $20 billion in revenues in 2006-07. That proportion is expected to rise to 16 percent of the $45 billion in revenues anticipated for 2015-16.
Velasco said it is important to have that third stream of revenue because sugar and ethanol are both cyclical, boom-or-bust commodities. Electricity is purchased in two or three year contracts adding much-needed stability to the sugar cane sector.
But he warned that bioelectricity isn’t an option for most crop-based ethanol plants. The process is dependent on having massive amounts of crop residue or biomass.
“That’s unique to sugar cane,” said Velasco.
