João Luís Nunes Carvalho
João Luís Nunes Carvalho, PhD. Agronomist at Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in 2004, Master and PhD in Soil Science at ESALQ/USP (2006 and 2010) and Post doc at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2014). Since 2011, he is a researcher at Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CNPEM/CTBE). His research has an emphasis on best agricultural practices to improve Biomass Production and Environmental Impacts of biomass production. Currently, he is involved in following projects: i) Impacts of crop rotation and no-tillage on sugarcane production; ii) Implications of sugarcane straw removal to bioenergy production on soil quality indicators and biomass production; iii) Agronomic and environmental impacts of energy cane production.
Sucre Project – lessons learned so far to recovery sugarcane straw for energy purposes
The Project BRA/10/G31 – Sugarcane Renewable Electricity (SUCRE) seeks to launch a commercial and environmental success history with sugarcane straw biomass (trash) electricity generation in Brazil, with significant impact on other sugarcane growing countries. The overall objective of the project is to catalyze the establishment of a commercial market for sugarcane straw-based electricity supply to the Brazilian grid, to displace fossil-fuel electricity that otherwise need to be generated to meet the growing electricity demand in Brazil.
To maximize the potential for electricity generation from sugarcane, the project will launch the widespread use of sugarcane straw (or “trash”): the tops and leaves of the sugarcane plant that historically have been burned on the cane field as a waste product and now, with unburned cane harvesting, left in the field to be decomposed. By adding straw to bagasse, biomass resource used as fuel increases significantly. This offers the opportunity for large amounts of renewable electricity to be exported from sugarcane mills to the grid, since all of the additional biomass harvested will be solely utilized for additional electricity generation. In spite of the project is still going, during the Ethanol 2G workshop the main lesson learned so far will be presented, mainly those issues related to the impacts of straw removal in the environment and straw quality for energy purposes.