Operations Operation Artichoke

Wieczorek, A. and Kosaric, N., Analysis of ethanol production from Jerusalem artichoke in a farm-scale operation, in Energy from Biomass and Wastes VIII, Proceedings of Symposium, Institute of Gas and Technology, Lake Buena Vista, FL, 1984, pp. 1113-1130. 

Seeds of Diversity Canada (formerly the Heritage Seed Program) operates from Toronto and cultivates accessions of Jerusalem artichoke as part of a conservation program (MacNab, 1989). The program includes material from wild populations and populations established from material originally planted in gardens. 

A relatively small amount of reducing inulo- -oses, fructans without a terminal glucose (Ernst et al., 1996), are formed from fructosyl transfer from inulin to free fructose by 1-FFT. In chicory, they are thought to appear when fructose accumulates during fructan breakdown and 1-FFT activity is still high (Van den Ende and Van Laere, 1996). A similar mechanism is probably operative in Jerusalem artichoke and responsible for the small amounts of inulo- -oses formed (Saengthongpinit and Sajjaanantakul, 2005). 

The cost of on-farm ethanol production decreased as processing plant size increased, from a net ethanol cost of 0.55 11 with a plant capacity of 3 x 105 kg feedstock to 0.21 -l-1 for a plant capacity of 4 x 106 kg feedstock (Kosaric et al., 1982). Raw material (Jerusalem artichoke tops and tubers) and by-product credits, from the sale of protein-rich pulp and stillage, remained constant, while fixed operating costs (e.g., depreciation, maintenance, labor, and taxes) were considerably reduced for a larger plant size (Table 14.4). For a plant with a capacity of 4 x 106 kg, ethanol cost was estimated to be about 40% of the price of gasoline in Canada in 1995 (Kosaric and Vardar-Sukan, 2001). 

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