A comprehensive study on the feasibility of Bioethanol production has been made public by the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA). The study was conducted by the DA’s Bureau of Agricultural Research’s (BAR) and centers on the viability of sweet sorghum and cassava for bioethanol feedstock.
The study covers production of bioethanol from cassava, postharvest activities, processing, marketing, organization and management, as well as the financial viability of the crop.
The study points out that feedstock from cassava can be produced at the lowest cost and that its ethanol yields are better than that of sugarcane and sweet sorghum But the main limiter will be the cost of the tubers for planting. In cassava production you harvest the roots and the trunk is what you cut up then plant into the ground to plant the next batch of crops.
I guess this is to be expected since cassava is usually used for starch production which is used by a lot of other commercial products. Not to mention that the Muslim population of Mindanao uses cassava as a staple instead of rice. Cassava production usually takes about 10 months to 1 year before you can harvest the roots. The longer you leave it in the ground the bigger will be the harvestable roots.
Sweet sorghum’s results indicate that its better than sugarcane because it is cheaper, drought-resistant, tolerates flooding, higher yield, with higher sugar content (sugar is what gets fermented into bioethanol). The report also points out that it isn’t that quite popular in the Philippines which would bode well for bioethanol producers because that would mean that they don’t have any other industries to compete with in terms of sourcing the feedstock, unlike for Cassava and Sugarcane. Problem with that is how to convince the farmers to plant Sweet Sorghum and the support facilities needed by the farmers to improve production and fight plant diseases and such.
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Category: Bioethanol, Feedstock
