Analysis of Environmental Impacts Derived from Burning of the Sugar Cane Bagasse

Among the gaseous emissions from an ethanol distillery, that generated by burning sugarcane bagasse at the distillery boiler is one of the most important. So is justified a study to assess the environmental impacts caused by burning sugarcane bagasse and its relation with the amount of steam produced for maintenance of the process. Once optimization methods may reduce the amount of steam used in the process, then it is possible measure the amount of gaseous emissions that are released into the atmosphere. This work aims to assess the economic relationship between the amount of steam produced and the amount of emissions generated for its production in terms of ecopoints. Analysing the gases generated by burning the sugar cane bagasse in a boiler of frequent use in ethanol distilleries will be used the Ecoinvent database for calculating the amounts of emissions reduced from burning bagasse as fuel. The results show that is extremely advantageous economically to the distillery reduce their gas emissions due to the reduction of steam production, not only because the reduction of bagasse used as fuel happens, but also because some changes in the process can require less mechanical effort in the equipments and extending the life span of the plant. It was concluded that it is possible to relate the process variables under study with the reduce of environmental impacts in the utilities sector of this process.