ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OF SWEET SORGHUM HYBRIDS BIOREFINERY COMPLEX

摘要

New sweet sorghum hybrids are promising multifunctional energy crops and the most photosyntheticefficient terrestrial biomass crops. Especially in tropical regions, sorghum hybrids by two cycles/year approach theannual productivity of micro-algae that reach sometimes a 6% of photosynthetic efficiency. In fact, for sweetsorghum numerous experimental trials anticipate yields of 180 fresh tons/ha per year. The exploitation of such cropfor the coproduction of several bulk energy products (i.e. bioethanol; power/heat; agro pellets; biogas/compost;etc…) anticipate significative benefits from the economic and CO_2 mitigation point of view. This paper analyses theeconomic and environmental possibilities of a sweet sorghum complex based on a no waste biomass process, whereplantation products are recycled and processed using different technologies in order to highly increase both theeconomic feasibility and the environmental sustainability of the biorefinery. Many different solution, regarding atropical region cultivation, transportation, logistics, utilities and energy production have been evaluated.