The positive part of the Brazil/sugar cane story is that some of the plants burn the bagasse for process energy.

This is the future of the Corn ethanol industry. The strong thing about this technology is not only will they get cellulosic ethanol from the cobs; but they will use "fractionation" to separate out the corn oil, and be able to use the lignin from the kernels, and cobs to power the plant (thus, virtually eliminating nat gas.)

Also, the DDGS with corn oil removed are superior for feeding.

In addition, an ash is produced that will be used as a soil amendment (this is being done by Corn Plus, now.)

Yes, it is, but it can be grown without the semi-slave labor conditions without a significant dent on EROEI.

You see, sugarcane doesn't need a lot of tending. It also requires few or none pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In fact, using a tractor to cut down the canes is better for the soil the the way we do things here, which is to burn the field and then use manual labor to cut the canes. The reason we do things with manual labor here is capital costs. Instead of acquiring the expensive equipment (trough expensive financing), a lot of the cane growers hire migrant workers that will work for a pittance, but if they had the capital to buy the machines, or the workforce wasn't so cheap, they could run the same plantation on a similar cost (and EROEI), with tractors and such. In fact, we are seeing a movement in that direction here.

Also, the distillation plants are mostly modern, use very little labor, and they burn the cane itself as fuel for the distillation. The fuel consumption is small.

Sugarcane has it's issues, of course, chief of them being deforestations in large areas, use of productive land that could be use for foodstuff and waste problems at the distillation plants. The smell can be bad, too, having passed by a region full of those plants, I can attest to that. It won't solve the problem, but it can be done in a more humane way, without cheap migrant workers in slave-like conditions, and still be EROEI positive, if you have the right climate and right soils.