SEP 03

Sameerwadi, Karnataka in India is looking into the various ways money can be made off the waste from sugarcane processing. After juice is pressed out of sugarcane, a fiber waste called bagasse is left over. A whole lot of bagasse. As a way to insulate sugarcane businesses from variations in market prices, a few technologies to turn bagasse into a usable substance are popping up.

On the one hand, Godavari Sugar Mills Ltd will use the fiber to make ethanol. The project hopes to be able to scale up from demonstration size to commercial size within a few years, processing about 5,000 tons of bagasse within four years, but they don’t state how much ethanol they plan to make with it. GSML also wants to make items like paper, cardboard, textiles, water-soluble adhesives, cements, dyes – even L-lactic acid – and other items from the waste to help make the facility viable. In other words, they don’t feel they’ll make very much from ethanol production. It’s the high-grade cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose derived from bagasse that will be the money makers.

Getting as much product and profit from sugarcane in both its edible and nonedible forms is the exact way we can make crops stretch and hopefully reduce the amount of the earth’s resources used to make various products.

Via TreeHugger, LiveMint; photo via GSML

Comments (6)

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written by Steve N. Lee, September 04, 2008

That's great.

I love ideas that deal with two problems at once. Here's it's dealing with waste and our need for green energy.

I read recently of a Hawaiian power plant that has converted to using people's garbage (food matter) to produce power. An excellent story.

Now sugar may be used for fuel - wonderful. Especially as India is a growing nation - both in population and demand for a modern lifestyle. It's going to need all the help it can get power-wise. This would be a major step in the right direction.

Steve N. Lee
author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com
and suspense thriller 'What if...?'

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written by t, September 14, 2008

Super sucky idea!
We should cut back on sugar consumption instead and keep people nice and fit :)

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Bagasse utilisation
written by s v venkatesh, October 19, 2009

Any thoughts for using the urban waste created by the many sugar cane juice vendors in Indian cities. Big industrial plants can consume for poser or ethanol or paper etc. Lok forward to response from you . venkatesh

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Good way to genreate power from waste
written by amit, November 28, 2009

It is realy a good way, infact many countries generate power from sugar cane waste.

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how the power will generate from sugarcane waste
written by aditya, July 14, 2012

Hello

This is Teja, i ve read the complete usage of sugarcane waste and complete products of waste, its very interesting to study the complete ideas of the waste product to make money,By studying the complete details of recycling the waste product is very interesting and makes and gives me a ideas about to start a new business by using a recycling process..
I got a doubt, i.e, How the power will generate from Sugarcane waste,By answer to my question i ll be clearing my doubts, please mail me to my above mail address This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thanking You

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NICe idea
written by Jatin shah, January 11, 2013

this is very good that even waste can be utilised to generate power.do anyone know industries which makes ethanol in maharashtra.mail- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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