Studies on Sugarcane as an Energy Crop for Punjab. Final Report

摘要

The energy costs and returns in the production of sugarcane and its conversion to alcohol have been estimated from the data collected from one sugar mill and one brewery in the State of Punjab. The sugar mill chosen for investigation has old machinery and modern energy conservation technology was not being used in it. The mill was using 735 x 10 exp 3 kcal of energy to process one tonne of sugarcane. The energy balance for sugar production is shown in Fig. 1. With the incorporation of machinery improvements and energy conservation practices, the energy balance can change significantly. Unlike sugarcane production, which gives the energy output to input ratio of the order of 20, primarily because of the fixation of large quantities of solar energy, processing of sugarcane consumes energy but does not add to the intrinsic energy of the raw material. The energy output to input ratio, both for sugar and alcohol production are, therefore, substantially less than 1.0. The energy output to input ratio for sugar production in the sugar mill chosen for these investigations was observed to be 0.335. The energy output to input ratio for the production of alcohol worked out to 0.456. Conclusions are: (1) Improvement in the machinery and incorporation of energy conservation practices can reduce the energy consumption of old sugar mills to a level that their dependance on external energy inputs is completely eliminated and up to 20% bagasse become surplus. (2) Integration of production of alcohol (from molasses) with improved sugar mill operation will allow the use to surplus bagasse for alcohol production, thereby reducing the external energy inputs to the minimum. (3) In view of the current relative prices of sugar and alcohol and the shortage of edible sugar, it is not practicable to either grow sugarcane for alcohol production only or divert more edible sugar for alcohol production. 12 refs., 4 figs., 11 tabs. (ERA citation 10:027021)