An assessment of ethanol fuel production potential from major crops in Thailand

Name: S. Yoosin

Organization : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment

Name: Chumnong Sorapipatana

Organization : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment

keyword: Ethanol as fuel

; Crops

Abstract: Thailand has three major problems to be concerned. Fristly, the agricultural crop prices are always uncertain. They are a consequence of persistent production surplus and the prices are determined by the world market. Secondly, most of Thailand's oil consumption is supplied by import, which its price is likely increasing in the long term. This leads the country to the energy insecurity. Lastly, Thailand faces the environmental problems form the exhaust emissions of vehicles in transportation. Therefore, the Thai government has decided to search for domestic alternative sources of energy, based on renewable feedstocks; fermentable ethanol from agricultural crops seems to be a feasible alternative solution for conventional fuel uses in the vehicles. The current status of Thailand's resources in term of crop potentials has been assessed in this study in order to investigate the availability of ethanol production's supply potential. The potential yield of ethanol from any crop depends on a starch or suger content. The ratio of ethanol conversion from each type of major crops in Thailand; cassava, corn, rice and sugarcane was calculated. The average yields of alcohol for given 1 ton of cassva, corn, rice and sugarcane are 129, 367, 405 and 97 liters, respectivly. The productions of major crops have been forcasted for 2002-2012. Then, the ethanol availability was calculated from these forcasted figures. Since, these major crops are normally supplied for foodstuff consumption. In this study, we assumed that the amounts of current export crops are the excess of the domestic consumption was calculated and compared with the gasoline demand in term of energy content. The results showed that the ethanol from the excess crops could not substitute the whole demand of gasoline. However it can be substituted about 65 per cent of it"

King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. KMUTT Library

Address: BANGKOK

Email: info.lib@mail.kmutt.ac.th

Created: 2003

Modified: 2017-09-19

Issued: 2017-05-04

BibliograpyCitation : Proceedings of the 2nd Regional Conference on Energy Technology Towards a Clean Environment, Phuket, V2 12-14 February 2003 p. 883-889

CallNumber: 12002412

eng

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