<The world is changing, but do those who should, worry? The Oil Drum DrumBeat: June 1, 2006>

107 comments on Lessons from Brazil

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Robert Rapier on June 1, 2006 - 10:08am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
He went on for a bit on how much more energy efficent sugar cane was than corn as a source of ethanol.

This certainly appears to be the case in Brazil. I never quite understood why the U.S. doesn't have sugar cane ethanol plants in places where we grow sugar cane. The claimed EROI is much better. Maybe the process is too dependent upon manual labor?

I have taken exception to some aspects of the USDA's corn ethanol studies, but one thing they have done a decent job on is surveying ethanol plants to determine actual energy inputs and outputs. I would like to see something like that done for Brazilian sugar cane ethanol plants, so we can get a feel for the true EROI. For example, do most Brazilian ethanol plants burn bagasse for steam? Or is this a rarity, yet the basis for the EROI claims?

RR

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GeoPoet on June 1, 2006 - 10:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Robert -

Back in the early 1900's, sugar cane was grown from Mississippi to the Rio Grande Valley, basically following the Gulf Coast. Sugarland is a suburb of Houston, home of Tom Delay (vomitous mass) and formerly Domino Sugar. The principal crop in most of the coastal counties of Texas and Louisiana was in fact sugar cane.

With the rise in the US dollar and cheap imports, guess what happened to the sugar cane industry? So, tariffs and subsidies were put in place. The net result is that it is often more profitable NOT to grow your cane.....

But the land and climate along the Gulf Coast is well suited to this crop, and we have farmed it intensively before. But not with sustainable rotations - just chemical inputs.

I watched a special on the Brazilian ethanol plants - they do use bagasse for steam routinely, and they also rotate crops to replenish their fields and avoid overuse of chemical inputs to help EROI. And yes, the waste is used as cattle feed to further offset cost.

Brazil is also researching using their "pencil plant" as an ethanol input. This is a very hardy and fast growing succulent, with a very high sugar content and loads of sap. It grows very well in extremely marginal soils, and is often the first plant to "fill back" in clear cuts in Brazil.

There is a very similar setup south of Lafayette Louisiana on I-49, left over from the late 1970's. This plant was also fired with bagasse, and the large ethanol stills are all lined up along the entrance to the mill. I walked through it about 4 years ago, just to see how it was put together before I built my personal still. It was abandoned when the bottom fell out of the oil industry in the 1980's.

Just maybe somebody will retool it and fire her up again soon, especially if Louisiana passes their "only Louisiana ethanol" law.

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phineas gage on June 1, 2006 - 11:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I wonder if sugar cane has taken a beating bc/ it competes with corn syrup in this country. With the heavy corn subsidies, corn syrup is artificially cheap.  Maybe if corn were not so heavily subsidized farmers could grow sugar cane in the gulf area profitably.
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Nate Hagens on June 2, 2006 - 12:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
i think you are right - get rid of all ag subsidies and let the grain mix change - we'd see less corn and lots more amaranth, switchgrass, etc.
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oilmanbob on June 2, 2006 - 3:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
the other subsidy that sugar has enjoyed is slave labor. Sugarland is also home to 4 units of the Texas Department of Corrections and the prison system not only operated its own farms but also rented the prisoners out to local plantations. American Sugar in south Florida imported Dominican and Haitian "guest workers" for the same purpose. Cuba had legal slavery until the 1870's and the Cuban workers from the fields were Castro's biggest supporters. Unless we plan to make semi-slaves and work them to death in the cane fields, sugar cane ethanol is a pipe dream.
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MikeCotton on June 1, 2006 - 7:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sugarland is/was the home of Imperial Sugar.
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Robert Rapier on June 1, 2006 - 9:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I lived near Sugarland for a couple of years (in Bay City) but I did not know that. I always wondered why they called it Sugarland.

RR

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Todd on June 1, 2006 - 2:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Robert,

You might want to pose that question to Milton Maciel on the Energy Resources forum.  He is the reigning organic, Brazilian sugar cane/ethanol expert there.

From what I've read of his past posts (I just lurk there), he has a wide range of excellent technical knowledge.

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107 comments on Lessons from Brazil

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