Abstract
In recent years, the expansion of sugarcane cultivation in Brazil and its growing importance in the Brazilian economy have been driven by a sharp increase in fuel alcohol production. This increase in fuel alcohol production was accompanied by increasing interest regarding the impacts of fuel crops in Brazil. In this study, regions of sugarcane expansion into deforested areas in the Atlantic Forest were studied by applying the emergy theory and indices. Environmental and economic inputs and the sustainability of the sugarcane production system were evaluated with the emergy method. The transformity (TR) was equal to 1.78E+11 seJ kg-1, the yield rate (EYR) was equal to 1.30, the investment rate was equal to 3.29, the environmental load rate was equal to 4.33, the renewability rate was equal to 18.77, and the exchange rate was equal to 1.09. The emergy indices of corn, cassava, wheat, and sugarcane (as raw materials for ethanol production) were used. In Brazil, sugarcane production for ethanol production was more emergetically sustainable based on the analysed emergy indices.
Highlights
The increasing attention given to oil shortages and environmental deterioration has resulted in technological research and development for the use of biomass-derived fuels, which are called biofuels
In the process of emergy evaluation, especially due to its extensive and ambitious scope, the emergy in a object is estimated in the presence of numerical uncertainty, which arises in all steps and from all sources used in the evaluation process (INGWERSEN, 2010)
Non-renewable energy represents 4.6% of the total emergy flow
Summary
The increasing attention given to oil shortages and environmental deterioration has resulted in technological research and development for the use of biomass-derived fuels, which are called biofuels. Biomass energy production was the second largest domestic electric energy source, accounting for 3.7% of the total energy supply In this case, the dominant energy source was hydroelectricity, which was responsible for producing 77.4% of the total supply (ABRAMOVAY, 2010). The production of biomass that is used to produce ethanol should be properly evaluated regarding yield, sustainability, and environmental impact as a function of planting (YANG et al, 2010). Multiple research possibilities exist, including the following: an analysis that considers the entire sugarcane production chain, including the industrial stage; a study on the economic, financial, social, and emergetic impacts of ethanol production on deforested areas in the Atlantic Forest biome; or a study that considers alternatives for ethanol production and/or biofuels. This article evaluates the sugarcane production systems for ethanol production in deforested areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest with emergy analysis
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