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NARANDIBA, Brazil, Dec 20 (IPS) – First got here sugar. For 4 centuries, it was the principle sugarcane product in Brazil. However for the reason that Nineteen Seventies sugarcane has grown and diversified as a supply of power: ethanol, electrical energy and biogas.
“Sugarcane is the inexperienced oil,” stated André Alves da Silva, business and new merchandise director of Cocal, as the corporate Comércio Indústria Canaã Açúcar e Álcool Ltda. is healthier recognized, which began large-scale manufacturing of biomethane, i.e. refined biogas, a renewable and clear equal of pure gasoline.
“We’ve a biofactory right here,” he informed IPS in an interview within the Cocal plant in Narandiba, a municipality situated within the west of the southern state of São Paulo.
Referring to the plant whose scientific title is Saccharum officinarum as “sugarcane” has turn into out of date on this area.
Along with sugar and ethanol, electrical energy is generated from sugarcane bagasse, and biogas and different by-products are additionally created, equivalent to biofertilizers, carbon dioxide gasoline and dried yeast, leftovers from alcohol fermentation, which, when processed, function protein-rich animal feed.
Biomethane instead of gasoline
The massive novelty is biomethane, produced since June, as the place to begin of a mission that can deliver gasoline to 3 carefully grouped cities: Narandiba, Pirapozinho and Presidente Prudente, with a mixed inhabitants of 264,000 individuals.
GasBrasiliano, an organization of the state-owned oil conglomerate Petrobras, shall be in control of distribution and is constructing a 65-kilometer gasoline pipeline, which is scheduled to be inaugurated in June 2022.
“It’s our first biomethane mission, the primary amongst many,” Alex Gasparetto, director-president of the distributor that holds the concession for piped gasoline within the west and north of São Paulo state, an space encompassing 375 municipalities and 9.2 million inhabitants, informed IPS.
São Paulo, the richest and most populated state in Brazil, dwelling to 46 million of the 214 million inhabitants of this monumental nation, accounts for greater than half of the nationwide sugarcane manufacturing, in additional than 150 agroindustrial sugar or ethanol vegetation subsequent to sugarcane plantations, most of them within the GasBrasiliano concession space.
“The potential is big, sugarcane biomethane can exchange all of the diesel and liquefied petroleum gasoline (for cooking) consumed within the state, a privileged state of affairs,” stated Alessandro Gardemann, president of the Brazilian Biogas Affiliation (ABiogás).
“Cocal is an indication mission, which fits from sugarcane cultivation to the ultimate shopper with the availability of biomethane for the complete yr,” he informed IPS by phone from Londrina, a metropolis within the southern state of Paraná the place his expertise providers firm, Geo Biogas & Tech, which promoted biogas within the sugar-energy sector, is headquartered.
Answer for seasonal limitations
Geo’s technological contribution was decisive for the Cocal biomethane mission to take off. It has lengthy been recognized how one can make biogas from vinasse, however this liquid residue from the ethanol (or alcohol) distillery can solely be used throughout harvest season, typically from April to November.
The vinasse is cumbersome and smelly, unimaginable to retailer for a lot of days within the ponds constructed to gather it earlier than it’s put into the horizontal biodigesters the place the natural materials is damaged down in an anaerobic course of that produces biogas.
To make sure a year-round provide, Geo tailored a German expertise to include into biodigestion one other waste product, cachaça or filter cake, a darkish sludge ensuing from the processing of sugarcane juice to make sugar. Cachaça, for Brazilians, is the title for sugarcane brandy.
A therapy course of that removes impurities and a part of the moisture converts this waste, which was discarded, into uncooked materials for biogas. It has “10 occasions extra natural matter than vinasse,” which is why it’s extra productive, Eduardo Baptista, supervisor of business manufacturing on the Cocal biogas plant, informed IPS.
This innovation made it doable to beat seasonality, as it’s saved in 4 open-air tanks subsequent to the 2 vertical biodigesters, particularly for the cachaça. “In the course of the harvest, we use the vinasse and between harvests, the cachaça,” avoiding interruptions within the manufacturing of biomethane, defined Alves, the corporate’s business director.
A second think about favor of the mission, he stated, was that there’s native demand for gasoline that would not be met by the GasBrasiliano pipeline, whose nearest level is greater than 100 km from Presidente Prudente, the principle metropolis within the area, with a inhabitants of 230,000.
Extending the prevailing community to this restricted market wouldn’t be economically viable, however a 65-kilometer gasoline pipeline from Cocal is, stated Gasparetto, GasBrasiliano’s director-president.
The third issue is environmental. With biomethane, Cocal seeks to scale back the greenhouse gases emitted in its ethanol manufacturing. Changing diesel with inexperienced gasoline decarbonizes the exercise by 95 %. Extra reductions might be obtained with the brand new gasoline in vehicles and agricultural gear, another that’s presently being examined.
As well as, the waste from which the biogas is extracted is transformed into clear biofertilizers, which emit 75 % much less carbon than chemical fertilizers, stated Cocal’s business director.
Lastly, the choice was additionally primarily based on the twin use of biogas: electrical energy or biomethane.
“Having two choices reduces the dangers,” the proportions might be modified in accordance with demand and costs, Alves stated. At the moment, 53 % of the biogas is refined into biomethane and 47 % is used for electrical energy technology.
Cocal has additionally been producing power by burning bagasse since 2002. As we speak it may possibly provide electrical energy to a metropolis of 730,000 inhabitants, the corporate studies.
Social contributions
For all this power manufacturing, Cocal has two industrial models, every with its personal sugarcane fields round it. The primary was put in in 1980 in Paraguaçu Paulista, 135 kilometers from Narandiba.
It employs a complete of 5,500 employees in 22 municipalities and has 125,000 hectares planted to sugarcane, totally on land leased underneath 20-year contracts, in accordance with Alves. The harvest reached 8.7 million tons of cane final yr.
Narandiba presently has about 6500 inhabitants, after 2000 arrived, attracted by the native operation of Cocal, inaugurated in 2008, stated the city’s mayor, Itamar dos Santos Silva, who estimated at 600 the direct and oblique workers of the sugar and alcohol plant a yr in the past – nearly 10 % of the inhabitants.
The municipality, which had stagnated when cattle ranching dominated its financial system within the final a long time of the final century, has prospered once more. “Sugarcane completely modified the social and financial state of affairs within the area,” the mayor stated in a gathering with IPS in his workplace.
Along with providing extra jobs, Cocal pays even the lowest-earning workers double what a ranch employee used to earn, he stated. With the rise in buying energy, “day by day a brand new home is in-built Narandiba” and commerce and the demand for colleges, well being providers and recreation has grown, Dos Santos Silva stated.
Tax income additionally elevated, nevertheless it lagged behind the speedy calls for created by the inflow of latest residents, lamented the mayor, whose plans embrace attracting {industry} and stepping up the coaching of younger individuals for the brand new provide of technical jobs within the sugarcane agro-industry.
Environmental sustainability was the principle motive for Liane, an organization that makes meals merchandise equivalent to biscuits and pasta, to signal the primary contract for the acquisition of biomethane distributed by GasBrasiliano in Presidente Prudente.
Biomethane doesn’t pollute like fossil fuels and doubtless has decrease prices than “the pure gasoline that involves us by truck from far-off,” Mauricio Calvo, Liane’s industrial director, informed IPS by phone from the corporate’s headquarters.
Initially, biomethane will go to firms, gasoline stations, purchasing malls, resorts and huge eating places, i.e. giant customers.
The provision of piped gasoline to households stays a long-term aim, Gasparetto informed IPS by phone from GasBrasiliano’s headquarters in Araraquara, a city 280 kilometers from São Paulo.
© Inter Press Service (2021) — All Rights ReservedUnique supply: Inter Press Service
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