(openPR) - Sugarcane waste biomass, called bagasse, could supply 15% of the Brazilian electricity demand by 2015, equivalent to 11.5 million megawatts. That is what Marcos Jank, President of the Brazilian sugar and ethanol industry association UNICA, says in his monthly market commentary at Ethanol Statistics.
“Today, electricity supplied by sugar and ethanol plants totals 1.6 million megawatts, a modest 2% of Brazil’s overall needs. With increased use of biomass from sugarcane, it is estimated that it would be feasible to expand the use of bioelectricity to 15 percent of the country’s needs by 2015” he said.
A large part of Brazil’s energy demand is satisfied with hydroelectric facilities, which are dependent on monthly rainfall. Mr. Jank emphasizes the strength of bagasse to complement these facilities as “the harvesting period, when more biomass is available, occurs during the dry season, when water levels are lower and hydroelectric facilities can produce less electricity. This makes the two sources of electricity complementary.”
In the full article, Mr. Jank addresses describes what he calls the ‘Brazil’s green energy revolution’, in which “sugarcane is processed to generate food, feed and energy in modern integrated bio-refineries that produce sugar, alcohol, fuel ethanol, bioelectricity and in the near future, bioplastics.
The article is part of a new format on EthanolStatistics.com in which all three major ethanol industry associations, the RFA, eBIO and UNICA, provide monthly market commentary through feature articles. eBIO provided an outlook on the most pressing issues for the European ethanol industry in 2008, while the RFA described the significant steps forward that the United States has made with respect to its energy future.
Ethanol Statistics is a European market research and business information publisher. Through its website, it provides professionals in the ethanol industry the latest ethanol news, commodity prices, expert opinions and market analyses
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