Sugarcane Ethanol
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A vision proposed by experts in sustainability. edited by Peter Zuurbier Jos van de Vooren Contributions to climate change mitigation and the environment Wageningen Academic u b l i s h e r s Sugarcane ethanol Sugarcane ethanol Contributions to climate change mitigation and the environment edited by: Peter Zuurbier Jos van de Vooren Wageningen Academic P u b l i s h e r s This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned. Nothing from this publication may be translated, reproduced, stored in a computerised system or published in any form or in any manner, including electronic, mechanical, reprographic or photographic, without prior written permission from the publisher, Wageningen Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 220, 6700 AE Wageningen, the Netherlands, ISBN: 978-90-8686-090-6 www.WageningenAcademic.com e-ISBN: 978-90-8686-652-6 DOI: 10.3920/978-90-8686-652-6 The individual contributions in this publication and any liabilities arising from them remain the responsibility of First published, 2008 the authors. The publisher is not responsible for © Wageningen Academic Publishers possible damages, which could be a result The Netherlands, 2008 of content derived from this publication. Table of contents Foreword 11 José Goldemberg, professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil Executive summary 15 Chapter 1 Introduction to sugarcane ethanol contributions to climate change mitigation and the environment 19 Peter Zuurbier and Jos van de Vooren 1. Introduction 19 2. Biofuels 20 3. Bioethanol 20 4. Production and use of bioethanol 21 5. Where does it come from: the feedstock for ethanol 22 6. Brazil as main exporter 23 7. What makes the ethanol attractive? 23 8. The core of the debate 24 9. Structure of the book 25 References 26 Chapter 2 Land use dynamics and sugarcane production 29 Günther Fischer, Edmar Teixeira, Eva Tothne Hizsnyik and Harrij van Velthuizen 1. Historical scale and dynamics of sugarcane production 29 2. Global potential for expansion of sugarcane production 47 References 59 Chapter 3 Prospects of the sugarcane expansion in Brazil: impacts on direct and indirect land use changes 63 André Meloni Nassar, Bernardo F.T. Rudorff, Laura Barcellos Antoniazzi, Daniel Alves de Aguiar, Miriam Rumenos Piedade Bacchi and Marcos Adami 1. Introduction 63 2. The dynamics of sugarcane expansion in Brazil 65 3. Methodology 66 4. Results and discussions 75 5. Conclusions and recommendations 91 References 92 Sugarcane ethanol 7 Chapter 4 Mitigation of GHG emissions using sugarcane bioethanol 95 Isaias C. Macedo and Joaquim E.A. Seabra 1. Introduction 95 2. Ethanol production in 2006 and two Scenarios for 2020 95 3. Energy flows and lifecycle GHG emissions/mitigation 96 4. Land use change: direct and indirect effects on GHG emissions 102 5. Conclusions 109 References 110 Chapter 5 Environmental sustainability of sugarcane ethanol in Brazil 113 Weber Antônio Neves do Amaral, João Paulo Marinho, Rudy Tarasantchi, Augusto Beber and Eduardo Giuliani 1. Introduction 113 2. The Brazilian environmental legal framework regulating ethanol production 117 3. Environmental indicators 120 4. Initiatives towards ethanol certification and compliance 132 5. Future steps towards sustainable production of ethanol and the role of innovation 135 References 135 Chapter 6 Demand for bioethanol for transport 139 Andre Faaij, Alfred Szwarc and Arnaldo Walter 1. Introduction 139 2. Development of the ethanol market 140 3. Drivers for ethanol demand 145 4. Future ethanol markets 151 5. Discussion and final remarks 153 References 155 Chapter 7 Biofuel conversion technologies 159 Andre Faaij 1. Introduction 159 2. Long term potential for biomass resources. 161 3. Technological developments in biofuel production 164 4. Energy and greenhouse gas balances of biofuels 172 5. Final remarks 177 References 179 8 Sugarcane ethanol Chapter 8 The global impacts of US and EU biofuels policies 181 Wallace E. Tyner 1. Introduction 181 2. Ethanol economics and policy 183 3. Impacts of US and EU policies on the rest of the world 189 4. Conclusions 195 Acknowledgements 196 References 196 Chapter 9 Impacts of sugarcane bioethanol towards the Millennium Development Goals 199 Annie Dufey 1. Introduction 199 2. Opportunities for sugarcane bioethanol in achieving sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals 200 3. Risks and challenges 207 4. Conclusions 220 References 222 Chapter 10 Why are current food prices so high? 227 Martin Banse, Peter Nowicki and Hans van Meijl 1. World agricultural prices in a historical perspective 227 2. Long run effects 229 3. What explains the recent increase in agricultural prices? 232 4. First quantitative results of the analysis of key driving factors 238 5. The future 241 6. Concluding remarks 244 Acknowledgements 246 References 246 Acknowledgements 249 Peter Zuurbier and Jos van de Vooren Authors 251 Keyword index 253 Sugarcane ethanol 9 Foreword José Goldemberg, professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil Ethanol, produced from biomass, has been considered as a suitable automobile fuel since the beginning of the automotive industry one century ago, particularly for vehicles powered with spark-ignition engines (technically referred as Otto cycle engines, but commonly known as gasoline engines). However, the use of ethanol was dwarfed by gasoline refined from abundant and cheap oil. The staggering amounts of gasoline in use today – more than 1 trillion litres per year – eliminated almost all the alternatives. However environmental as well as security of supply concerns sparked, in the last decades, renewed interest in ethanol. In many countries it is blended with gasoline in small amounts to replace MTBE. In Brazil it has already replaced 50% of the gasoline thanks to the use of flex-fuel engines or dedicated pure ethanol motors. Worldwide ethanol is replacing already 3% of the gasoline. Maize (in the US) and sugarcane (in Brazil) account for 80% of all ethanol in use today. The agricultural area used for that purpose amounts to 10 million hectares less than 1% of the arable land in use in the world. There are three main routes to produce ethanol from biomass: • fermentation of sugar from sugarcane, sugar beet and sorghum; • saccharification of starch from maize, wheat and manioc; • hydrolysis of cellulosic materials, still in development. There are important differences between the fermentation and saccharification routes. When using sugarcane one does not need an ‘external’ source of energy for the industrial phase of ethanol production since the bagasse supplies all the energy needed. The fossil fuel inputs are small (in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) so basically this route converts solar energy into ethanol. The final product is practically a renewable fuel contributing little to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Ethanol from maize and other feed stocks requires considerable inputs of ‘external’ energy most of it coming from fossil fuels reducing only marginally GHG emissions. Sugarcane grows only in tropical areas and the Brazilian experience in this area led to ethanol produced at very low cost and competitive with gasoline through gains in productivity and economies of scale (Goldemberg, 2007). Ethanol produced from maize in the US cost almost twice and from wheat, sugar beets, sorghum (mainly in Europe) four times (Worldwatch Institute, 2006). Sugarcane ethanol 11 Foreword The use of biofuels as a substitute for gasoline has been recently criticized mainly for: • sparking a competition between the use of land for fuel ‘versus’ land for food which is causing famine in the world and • leading to deforestation in the Amazonia. The importance of these concerns was greatly exaggerated and is, generally speaking, unwarranted. The recent rise in prices of agricultural products – after several decades of declining real prices – has given rise to the politically laden controversy of fuel ‘versus’ food. This problem has been extensively analyzed in many reports, particularly the World Bank (World Bank, 2008), which pointed out that grain prices have risen due to a number of individual factors, whose combined effect has led to an upward price spiral namely: high energy and fertilizer prices, the continuing depreciation of the US dollar, drought in Australia, growing global demand for grains (particularly in China), changes in import-export policies of some countries and speculative activity on future commodities trading and regional problems driven by policies subsidizing production of biofuels in the US and Europe (from maize, sugar beets and wheat). The expansion of biofuels production particularly from maize over areas covered by soybeans in the US contributed to price increases but was not the dominant factor. The production of ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil has not influenced the prize of sugar. Despite that, the point has been made that other countries had to expand soybean production to compensate for reductions in the US production possibly in the Amazonia, increasing thus deforestation. Such speculative ‘domino effect’ is not borne out by the facts: the area used for soybeans in Brazil (mainly in the Amazonia) has not increased since 2004 (Goldemberg and Guardabassi, in press). The reality is that deforestation in the Amazonia has been going on for a long time at a rate of approximately 1 million hectares per year and recent increases are not due to soybean expansion but to cattle. Emissions from land use changes resulting from massive deforestation would of course release large amounts of CO2 but the expansion of the sugarcane plantations in Brazil is taking place over degraded pastures very far from the Amazonia. Emissions from such land use change have been shown to be small (Cerri et al., 2007). The present area used of sugarcane for ethanol production in Brazil today is approximately 4 million hectares out of 20 million hectares used in the world by sugarcane in almost 100 countries. Increasing the areas used for of sugarcane for ethanol production in these countries by 10 million hectares would result in enough ethanol to replace 10% of the gasoline in the world leading to a reduction of approximately 50 million tons of carbon per year.