Comparative Analysis of Brazilian Residual Biomass for Pellet Production - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 8

as Brazil's largest hydropower plant Itaipú (Ministério de Minas e Energia 2008).
Other kinds of residue, like wood saw dust and coffee husks, also have a great po-
tential, either for covering the local energy demand or for export in form of pel-
lets.
The aim of this work is to study and evaluate the implementation of pellet pro-
duction using residues like rice husks and sugar cane bagasse for energy genera-
tion in Brazil. Some properties of residual biomass were analysed at the Branden-
burg University of Technology (BTU) in Cottbus, Germany. The first parameters
investigated were moisture, ash content, calorific value, and ash melting point.
The analysis helped the authors to determine optimal pellet mixtures of different
raw biomasses with their best characteristics. Besides, the resulting blends were
also based on the geographical and agricultural aspects of the crops. The conver-
sion of biomass into pellets and pellets into energy could be applied for Brazilian
biomass. This potential should foster research towards new power plant technolo-
gies for decentralized energy generation. Furthermore, the socio-economic feasi-
bility of pellet production should be taken into consideration.
2.2 Situation Description
In Brazil, agricultural production is located within the humid and warm semitropi-
cal latitudes of the South and Centre-West regions ( Figure 2.1 ) . The urban centres,
as well as the good access to the main ports, facilitate the access to markets for
producers (Schnepf et al. 2001). The Federal State of Rio Grande do Sul is the
core of irrigated crop acreage and produces an important share of Brazil's rice.
The Federal State of Minas Gerais is the leading producer of coffee. The main
sugar cane production is located on the Federal State of São Paulo, which has
modern industrial technology and the lowest production costs. Besides that, sugar
cane crops are closer to consumers, to research centres, and to the ethanol machin-
ery sector. During the last five years, ethanol production has been growing and
exports increasing. According to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística,
the yield of 2007 was of approximately 550 million tonnes of sugar cane, of which
around half was used for ethanol production (15.3 billion of litres). In 2007, there
were 70,000 farmers planting sugar cane all over Brazil and 393 ethanol plants,
distributed mainly to the Centre-south region (IICA 2007).
The fast-growing tree species Eucalyptus sp. , originally an Australian plant, oc-
curs all over Brazil's geographical regions (Müller et al. 2005). Most of the post-
lignite mining areas are reforested with this tree species. Opposing the current en-
vironmental policy in Brazil, areas where native vegetation was illegally exploited
have been recovered with Eucalyptus sp. monoculture (Müller et al. 2005). Euca-
lyptus sp. wood is mostly employed in the paper industry, as charcoal in the pig
iron furnaces and broadly used for carpentry.