Energy Cane as a Multiple-Products Alternative

摘要

CANE SUGAR planting as it was formerly known is in serious and essentially irreversible trouble. Diversification of sugarcane to alternative farm crops is indicated in some instances. Yet, for the most part, the more logical alternative is an internal diversification to a multiple-products biomass commodity. Sometimes termed the energy cane approach, its keystones are the management of sugarcane as a quantitative rather than qualitative entity, and the inclusion of certain tropical-grass relatives to assist cane in its year-round supply of biomass to industrial consumers. Managed in this way, absolute tonnages of whole cane are increased materially beyond what is possible from sugar-crop management. Juice quality declines but sugar yields are significant as a function of high biomass tonnages per acre. Usage of the lignocellulose can range from low-quality humid boiler fuel in furnaces designed for refuse incineration, to higher-quality fuels in more efficient boilers, to proprietary fuels and chemical products, and to lignocellulose supply as the feedstock for primary chemicals production. The latter might include, for example, synthesis gas and petrochemicals in tropical regions lacking natural gas, naphtha, or coal as starting materials. Diversification of sugarcane to completely new farm commodities is opposed in favor of internal diversification to a high-growth, multiple-products commodity. Decisive issues here are as much educational as they are technical. The energy cane concept maintains that sugarcane is a future resource of enormous national and international value. It should develop accordingly where decision-taking is by persons who respect the cane plant and who have done their homework on its alternative-use potentials. 35 references, 5 figures, 6 tables. (ERA citation 10:022526)