Biofuel from sorghum is finally coming to Jamaica.
Florida-based company Benchmark Renewable Energy has
plans to construct a 10 million-gallon ethanol plant in Jamaica as reported in the
article “New
Ethanol Plant For Jamaica”, published Wednesday March 9, 2016 by Camilo
Thame, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Their planned feedstock is sorghum, a plant that's
similar to sugar but looks a lot like wheat as shown below.
They're planning to plant some 4,000 hectares of
sorghum in the next two (2) years to yield can yield up to 400,000 tonnes of
sorghum annually from two harvests. An additional 4000 hectares will make it
possible for them to double the capacity of their ethanol plant to 20 million
gallons.
Their business model is based on sales of ethanol to
Petrojam as an additive to gasoline.
In so doing, they hope to replace some 80% of
Jamaica's imported ethanol. They will also generate their own electricity by
firing up a 6MW electrical generator, which will allow them to sell some
electricity to the JPS Co (Jamaica Public Service Company)
Ethanol
from Sorghum not a new idea – Russians floated the idea that never materialized
If this plan sounds familiar it should; some Russian
investors had a similar idea back in March 2011 as reported in my blog article
entitled “Russians
see potential in Ethanol Fuel Plant in Jamaica – From Russia With Love for
sorghum”. .
However, for reasons unknown, the plant never
materialized and I've not heard of the Russians or their plans to make ethanol
from sorghum. I'm hopeful for this investment to succeed, as Benchmark
Renewable Energy are awaiting several things:
1. Lease
agreement for 4,000 hectares of land
2. Offtake
agreement with the state-run refinery, Petrojam,
3. Power
purchase agreement with the JPS co
So can this idea be duplicated through Jamaica?
Growing
sorghum - The Rise of the Health conscious Sugar Market in Jamaica
Expect the company to break ground in April 2016 and
developed over the next two (2) years as Growing sorghum isn't easy but fairly
easy to harvest.
We might soon hear of the rise of small sugar
producers who use sorghum to target a health conscious market as predicted in
my blog article
entitled “Why
Seprod and GraceKennedy are expanding into the Branded Sugar Market in Jamaica”.
Sorghum might be a great replacement for sugar, seeing
as sugar is dying as noted in “Gov't
To Help Chinese-Owned Pan Caribbean Sugar Factory”, Published Tuesday March
22, 2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Care has to be taken to rest the land as sorghum mops
up whatever nitrogen is in the soil. Plant rotation with mustard seed, a
nitrogen fixing plant, will help to replenish the soil and produce some 500,000
gallons of aviation jet fuel aka kerosene. Despite this, sorghum is carbon
negative, removing some three tonnes of Carbon dioxide for every one tonne of
sorghum produced.
I expect in short order another company coming to
Jamaica to grow Sorghum to supply branded healthy sugar, despite there being no
such thing.
So a replacement for sugar, then!?
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