Sugar Mills Test Ethanol Produced With Sorghum

Large Brazilian ethanol producing groups, such as Raizen, ETH, Bunge and Sao Martinho are planting sweet sorghum, which is a grass family plant, much like sugar cane and corn, in an attempt to supplement the offer of raw materials during the sugar cane off-season.

Production is meanwhile experimental, but the mills believe that sweet sorghum, which has different properties from fodder sorghum (used in the production of feed), can strengthen the supply of ethanol in the most critical period of the year. Planting began in December to harvest between March and April this year of 2012, when the sugar cane off-season ends. The idea is to take advantage of this window when mills production stops duet to lack of raw material.

Sorghum also piqued the interest of mills owners because to process sorghum culm, where sugar is, only a few tweaks are needed in the plantation and at the industrial area. The production cost less than sugar cane, since sorghum requires less work than cane. "Sorghum seems to be a good alternative to accelerate growth of our production," says Luis Felli, Director of ETH Bioenergy.

Of the 120 thousand hectares that are cultivated by the company for the next harvest, 1.5 thousand hectares are sorghum. Raizen, a joint venture between Shell and Cosan, also extended its area with sorghum in 2011, to one thousand hectares. "We are studying how sorghum can enter our system", says Rodolfo Geraldi, agricultural director of the company.

The four suppliers of sweet sorghum seeds in Brazil - Embrapa, Monsanto, Ceres and Advanta - are less cautious and invest in genetic improvement to increase productivity. "In ten years, sorghum should achieve the productivity of sugarcane", says William Burnquist, Manager of Ceres in Brazil. However, manufacturers recognize that this will be a "decisive" year for the future of sorghum ethanol market.

"With larger areas, you can see the viability of the technology", says Jose Carlos Carramate, business leader of Monsanto's cane. The multinational will provide seed for planting in 20 thousand hectares, compared to 4 thousand hectares last year. According to Andre May, Embrapa researcher, there is potential for the planting of up to 1.5 million hectares of sorghum in the off-season, to produce 3.7 billion gallons of ethanol, about 13% of national production.

"But the most realistic projection is the planting of 300 thousand hectares in the coming years", he says. For the CTC (Sugar Cane Technology Center), sorghum is still a promise. "The productivity index and the amount of sugar is still much lower than that of cane", says Luis Antonio Dias Paes, Director of the CTC. "However, it has the option of becoming an interesting niche in the beginning and end of the sugarcane harvest".

Note from J. Clovis Lemes: Brazil missed the boat, forgets his top ethanol technology scientist, Professor Romeu Corsini, my mentor. He imported 500 kilos of sweet sorghum from Texas in the 1980s, and tested successfuly the sugar cane/sorghum technology in Brazil. He died March 2010. According to the Professor, when he was alive, political reasons and what he called the "petroleum cartel" behind it never allowed the implementation of his Mini-Mills Integrated Project. It is odd that the industries above mentioned these days use his very ideas, but do not mention him. Click to read

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