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New varieties of sugarcane are being developed
that are especially good for use in making ethanol. Click the image for more
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New Sugarcanes to Deliver One-Two Energy Punch
By Jan Suszkiw
October 2, 2008 New varieties of sugarcane and
other crops adapted to the U.S. Gulf Coast region are being developed for use
in making ethanol as a cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
scientists, in cooperation with the
Louisiana
Agricultural Experiment Station (LAES) and the
American Sugar Cane League, USA (ASCL),
have already released three new varieties of "energy sugarcane."
They're called that because of their high stalk contents of sugar and fiber,
which could eventually serve as complementary ethanol feedstocks.
Raw-sugar processors now burn the fiber to generate heat that powers
stalk-crushing and sugar-crystallization processes, notes
Edward
Richard, who leads the ARS
Sugarcane
Research Unit in Houma, La. The extracted sucrose sugar is sold for
consumption or converted into ethanol. However, Richard anticipates that
biorefineries will use the fiber as well, once technologies for converting
cellulose into ethanol become economically feasible.
The three new energy sugarcanes--one high fiber/low sucrose and two high
sucrose/high-fiber varieties--were released in April 2007 by ARS, LAES and ASCL
as part of a cooperative breeding program. The releases also reflect ARS' push
to exploit region-specific crops as feedstocks that will sustain localized
production of biobased fuels and energy.
Corn, especially that grown in the Midwest, is a staple feedstock for
ethanol production. But in southern Louisiana, soil conditions are more
amenable to sugarcane and sweet sorghum. Sugarcane also offers a key processing
advantage over corn-based ethanol production: Cane sugars needn't be derived
from starch using cooking steps and enzymes. Rather, the sugar can be directly
fermented into ethanol as soon as the sugar is extracted from stalks.
Richard estimates an acre planted to one of the three energy sugarcanes
could yield nearly 1,240 gallons of ethanol using both the sugar and fiber. To
extend sugarcane's growing and processing season and production range further
to the north, his lab also is developing cold-tolerant varieties of the crop.
Read
more about the research in the October 2008 issue of Agricultural Research
magazine.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.