Ethanol from sugar cane

Brazil has been the major producer of ethanol in the world and began to make ethanol from sugar cane in 1975. By the 1990s, more than 4 million cars were using ethanol. 

Brazil has produced ethanol as a fuel since 1930. Table II shows that productivity of methanol from wood is better than ethanol from sugar cane and much better than ethanol from wood. This fact plus the convenience of not being dependent on just one crop and the possibility of using poor lands for reforesting indicated that the production of methanol from wood should be more deeply evaluated. 

Other feedstocks are there. Some polyethylene is made now in Brazil from ethylene made from ethanol from sugar cane. That is marketed and touted as though... 

Table 6.3 Energy balance for the manufacture of ethanol from sugar cane. From Mouris, E. (1984) Chem. Ind., 435.

Dowlex A low-pressure, solution process for making linear polyethylene using 1-octene as the comonomer. Developed by Dow Chemical Company and used by that company to make products having the same name, but not offered for license. Planned to be used in a plant in Brazil, based on ethanol from sugar cane, expected to startup in 2011. 

Those in Brazil, which will be the first to become operational, will use ethanol from sugar cane. This is what could be expected as this represents the cheapest feedstock available today. In China the ethanol is most likely to be produced from grains or cassava. 

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