"$120m ethanol plant operation postponed in Philippines"

[uls]

nope. the ethanol will come from the sugar in the sugarcane (like what they do in Brazil)

sugarcane --> sucrose --> purified and fermented --> ethanol

then the bagasse (a by-product) will be used for cogeneration

[uls]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgbOy0JVw64]Ch. 6 - Making Ethanol from Sugarcane - YouTube[/ame]

[uls]

if they used byproducts alone they'll produce very very little ethanol

[niky]

The weed... Jatropha... we already knew it wouldn't work. Now they're all pointing fingers at each other and people are asking why pilot programs weren't first implemented before the jatropha was planted.

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As for sugar supplies. Funny thing. One of the limiting factors in local ethanol production is simply because sugar is a higher value product than ethanol. The only way to make farmers plant sugarcane for ethanol over sugar is to lower the price of sugar dramatically.

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Right now, the Philippines requires 400 million liters of ethanol per year (estimated). We could only produce 100 million (estimated) with no expected shortfalls... but in the past few years, production has been erratic... sometimes as low as 16-40 million.

Given that ethanol gives 3% less energy, and we're talking about a total liquid fuel volume of 4,000 million liters (if we're replacing 10%)... then the total liquid used is 4,102 million liters.

So... we produce a maximum of 100 million liters, but we're still going to import 4,002 million liters of fuel (instead of 4,000 million). Operation successful.

[uls]

As for sugar supplies. Funny thing. One of the limiting factors in local ethanol production is simply because sugar is a higher value product than ethanol. The only way to make farmers plant sugarcane for ethanol over sugar is to lower the price of sugar dramatically.

if i was a sugarcane farmer and i'm not bound by a contract i would sell my harvest to whoever can pay me more

sugar miller or ethanol plant?

usually it's the sugar miller