Paper details

Title:

Diffusion of a Sustainable EU Model to Produce 1st Generation Ethanol from Sweet Sorghum in Decentralised Plants

Author(s):

Pin, M., Picco, D., Vecchiet, A., Parlagreco, C.M., Leòn, O., Fernández Gonzalez, J, Konstantinou, K., Bartsios, A.

Document(s):

Abstract:

In the current situation the EU bioethanol market is controlled by big industrial groups and large agricultural cooperatives of the sugar and alcohol industries and mainly cereals are processed in big plants (100,000­200,000 t/y). This situation is due to some relevant barriers: economic, logistical, ecological, environmental, social and dissemination barriers. Sweet sorghum is an energy crop characterised by high biomass yields, large amount of free sugars in the stems and low input requirements. The 1st generation bioethanol produced from sweet sorghum presents a high environmental, economic and energetic sustainability: the ascribed GHGs saving is 70­71%, its energy ratio is 1.7­7.3 and the technical simplicity of the processing and the exploitation of by­products guarantee the economic viability also for decentralised small­medium plants (max 15,000 t/y). The SWEETHANOL project is supported by the European Commission in the ambit of IEE Programme and wants to contribute to change the current situation concerning the raw material diversification, decentralisation and sustainability of 1st generation bioethanol obtained processing sweet sorghum, which can be grown in the southern regions of the EU. Thereby, the SWEETHANOL project wants to increase the knowledge of all chain players about the sweet sorghum potentialities for the bioethanol production in decentralised plants.

Keywords:

bioethanol, biogas, decentralised generation, modelling, power generation, sweet sorghum

Topic:

Technology Deployment and Industrial Demonstration

Subtopic:

Biofuels for transport

Event:

19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition

Session:

VP4.3.11

Pages:

2313 - 2316

ISBN-13:

978-88-89407-55-4

ISBN-10:

88-89407-55-7

Paper DOI:

10.5071/19thEUBCE2011-VP4.3.11

Price:

FREE