Sustainability assessment of sugarcane biorefinery and molasses ethanol production in Thailand using eco-efficiency indicator

Thapat Silalertruksa, Shabbir H. Gheewala and Patcharaporn Pongpat

Applied Energy, 2015, vol. 160, issue C, 603-609

Abstract: The study aims to evaluate the sugarcane biorefinery and molasses ethanol production in Thailand using the combined environmental and economic sustainability indicator, so called “Eco-efficiency”. Four sugarcane biorefinery scenarios in Thailand are evaluated. The total output values (US$) and the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (kgCO2eq) are selected as the indicators for characterizing economic and environmental performance, respectively. The results show that the biorefinery system of mechanized farming along with cane trash utilization for power generation yields the highest eco-efficiency. The benefits come from the increased value added of the biorefinery together with the decreased GHG emissions of the biorefinery system. As compared to the base case scenario, the new systems proposed result in the eco-efficiency improvement by around 20–70%. The biorefinery concept induces reduction of GHG emissions attributed to molasses ethanol. Green cane production and harvesting results in further lowering of the GHG emissions. Integration of sugarcane biomass utilization across the entire sugarcane complex would enhance the sustainability of the sugarcane production system.

Keywords: Biorefinery; Eco-efficiency; Sugarcane; Molasses ethanol; Life cycle assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915010235
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:160:y:2015:i:c:p:603-609

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.08.087

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().