Economic analysis of sorghum plant cultivation as biomass source for 2nd generation biofuel feedstock

Abstract

Sorghum plant (Sorghum bicolor L.) is a potential cereal plant to be cultivated and utilized. Currently, sorghum cultivation is not well developed and sorghum production is still very low, despite the fact that sorghum biomass including its roots, stems, and leaves is very potential to be utilized as 2nd generation biofuel feedstock. The utilization of sorghum for 2nd generation biofuel has several advantages, such as not competing with food, recent developing technology reduces the conversion cost of production process, and it is environmentally friendly. Therefore, the aim of this research was to calculate the economic feasibility of sorghum cultivation in order to fulfill the requirement of biomass feedstock for bio-oil industry, with calculation performed for capacity of 100, 200 and 2,000 tons/day. The feasibility calculation results of the sorghum cultivation business showed that the sorghum cultivation for biomass requirements of the bio-oil plant is feasible for all capacities. For all capacities, the business is still feasible when there is a 50% increase in seed prices, and it becomes unfeasible when the selling price of sorghum seeds decreases starting from 5%.