Elsevier

Biomass and Bioenergy

Volume 32, Issue 8, August 2008, Pages 781-813
Biomass and Bioenergy

The sustainability of Brazilian ethanol—An assessment of the possibilities of certified production

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2008.01.005Get rights and content

Abstract

In this article the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the production of ethanol from sugarcane in the state of São Paulo (Brazil) are evaluated. Subsequently, an attempt is made to determine to what extent these impacts are a bottleneck for a sustainable and certified ethanol production. Seventeen environmental and socio-economic areas of concern are analysed. Four parameters are used to evaluate if an area of concern is a bottleneck: (1) the importance of the area of concern, based on the severity of the impact and the frequency of which an aspect is mentioned in the literature as an area of concern, (2) the availability of indicators and criteria, (3) the necessity of improvement strategies to reach compliance with Brazilian and/or (inter) national legislation, standards, guidelines and sustainability criteria, and (4) the impact of these improvement strategies on the costs and potential of ethanol production. Fourteen areas of concern are classified as a minor or medium bottleneck. For 7 areas of concern the additional costs to avoid or reduce undesirable effects have been calculated at ⩽+10% for each area of concern. Due to higher yields and overlapping costs the total additional production costs of compliance with various environmental and socio-economic criteria are about +36%. This study also shows that the energy input to output ratio can be increased and the greenhouse gas emissions reduced by increasing the ethanol production per tonne cane and by increasing the use of sugarcane waste for electricity production. A major bottleneck for a sustainable and certified production is the increase in cane production and the possible impacts on biodiversity and the competition with food production. Genetically modified cane is presently being developed, but is at this moment not (yet) applied. Both a ban on and the allowance of the use of genetically modified cane could become a major bottleneck considering the potentially large benefits and disadvantages, that are both highly uncertain at this moment. The approach demonstrated in this report provides a useful framework for the development of a practically applicable certification system, but further monitoring and research is required to reduce gaps in knowledge in combination with stakeholder consultation (particularly with respect to the three bottlenecks identified in this article).

Introduction

The production of biofuels has been growing steadily during the previous years and is projected to increase further during the coming decades. This goes especially for the production of ethanol from sugarcane, of which Brazil is a major producer. The production of ethanol in Brazil increased from 0.6 Mm3 in 1975 (the start of the Brazilian ethanol programme) to 12 Mm3 in 1995 and 16 Mm3 in 2005, which equals half the global bioethanol production [1], [2]. This production is projected to increase to up to 36 Mm3 in 2015 [3]. Further, Brazilian ethanol is the most important contributor to the international trade of ethanol, with an estimated share of about 60% in 2005 [4].

Concerns have been raised about the ecological, economical and social impacts of bioethanol production and to what extent the total sum of these impacts undermines a sustainable development and use of this energy source. Many studies have been carried out to assess the impacts of ethanol production (e.g., [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]), most of which focus however on a small number of impacts. Also, several projects have been undertaken and are ongoing to develop a certification system to ensure a sustainable production and use of bioenergy; see Lewandowski and Faaij [12] and the article of Van Dam et al. elsewhere in this special issue for an overview of recent developments. It can be concluded that there are many ongoing efforts to develop certification systems, but only a few systems are operational. In this article, we present a systematic attempt to formulate a set of practically applicable sustainability criteria that are (potential) bottlenecks for a sustainable and certified bioenergy production. We apply these criteria to the production of ethanol from sugarcane in the state of São Paulo (SP) in Brazil. This case was chosen as case study for two reasons. (1) Ethanol is the world's most important biofuel. (2) The combination of fertile soils, favourable climate, relative good infrastructure and the Brazilian ethanol program (ProAlcool) has made SP the world's most important ethanol-producing region with a share of 21% of the total worldwide production [1], [2]. Further, a large fraction of the increase in ethanol production in Brazil during the next decade is expected to be realized in SP [3], [13].

The formulation and application of criteria are done in five steps. First, the key areas of concern when discussing sustainability criteria are selected (Section 2); these are also called issues. Second, a literature review is carried out to analyse the ecological and socio-economical impacts of ethanol production in SP. Third, an assessment is made of the level of compliance of the present impact of ethanol production with Brazilian and (inter) national legislation, standards and guidelines and also with sustainability criteria that are included in existing certification systems for agricultural and wood products. Fourth, the implications for certification are discussed, by assessing to what extent practically applicable indicators and criteria are available or need to be developed, by investing what kind of improvement strategies can be applied to meet sustainability criteria and by estimating the impact of these improvements on the ethanol production costs and/or the amount of ethanol that can be produced sustainable. An indicator is a quantity that can be used to quantify the impact (e.g., the water collection rate for cane milling, in m3 per tonne (t) cane). A criterion is the value of this unit that can be used to define when the impact is sustainable (e.g., the water collection rate should be below 1.0 m3 t−1 cane). The results of step two, three and four, are presented in 3.2 Ecological areas of concern, 3.3 Socio-economical areas of concern. Fifth, the results are summarized and conclusions are formulated to what extent each area of concern is a bottleneck for certification (Section 5).1 Specific attention is hereby paid to gaps in knowledge.

Section snippets

Approach and methodology

The approach and methodology applied in this research is taken from the FairBiotrade research project [15]. In this project the methodology was applied to a (fictive) woody bioenergy crop production system in Brazil (eucalyptus) and Ukraine (poplar). In this article we apply it to an existing bioenergy production system, namely the production of ethanol from sugarcane in the state of São Paulo (SP) in Brazil. Seventeen key areas of concern are selected and included in our work (Table 1). The

Results

In this section results are presented for each of the 17 areas of concern. The results are given for ecological (Section 3.2) and socio-economical areas of concern (Section 3.3). Results that are applicable to multiple areas of concern are shown separate (Section 3.4). The impact of compliance with various sustainability criteria on the costs of ethanol is analysed in Section 4.

Economic implications

In Brazil the production costs of hydrated ethanol decreased from 0.87 2005 l−1 in 1975 to 0.26 2005 l−1 in 2004 [114]. The production costs are currently below that of any other liquid biofuel. Ethanol is at present, on average, competitive with gasoline and diesel from fossil oil at an oil price of 40–50 US$ per barrel, which is the case since 2003 [115]. Government control, such as quotas for production and export, as well as subsidies for production and logistics have been completely

Conclusions and discussion

In this article we have analysed which issues are a potential bottleneck for a sustainable production of ethanol from sugarcane from São Paulo (Brazil). Seventeen areas of concern were formulated and scored on four aspects to determine whether an area of concern is a minor, medium or major bottleneck, see Table 17. Aspect 1 ‘Importance of the area of concern’ and 3 ‘Necessity of improvement strategies’ were valued twice as important as the other two aspects when calculating the concluding

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by SenterNovem, The Netherlands Agency for Sustainable Development and Innovation. The study forms part of the programme Strategic Support of International Collaboration (STROIS) of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment of the Netherlands.

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