Avaliação de implementação de biorefinarias rurais e sociais na Colômbia

Mestrado em Engenharia Alimentar - Instituto Superior de AgronomiaA natural fuel, from renewable sources, like ethanol, can generate social and environmental gains in the medium and long term. The feasibility of ethanol production through micro-refineries in areas of small farms encourages the growth of regions and small farmers, reducing migration to urban centers, creating sustainable jobs, steady income for smallholders, and other social and environment benefits. This work, conducted with the support of CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) and included in the Project CLAYUCA (Consortium of Research Support and Development of Cassava in Latin America and Caribbean), the study focused on the installation of social bio-refineries, in poor communities of Colombia. These bio-refineries will use cassava mainly as raw material for obtaining bio-ethanol. Cassava, besides being a very abundant crop in tropical and subtropical regions, is also easy to grow, it grows in marginal conditions where many other crops do not survive. As a source of starch is a highly competitive culture: the roots contain more starch in dry weight, then the average of food crops and more easily extracted with simple technologies. Thus, as the starch-based production of bio-ethanol, cassava becomes a potential source of bio-energy. The bio-ethanol from cassava can provide electricity to every rural community that never had access to it and that depends on wood, dung or coal as energy sources. Can be used in cooking stoves in these communities, saving them time and energy spent for other energy sources, and can also be used as motor fuel in vehicles fitted with a kit or blended with gasoline at a rate of 30%. This study was designed primarily to analyze, evaluate, compare and propose improvements to the technical and economic feasibility of the implementation of micro-bio-refineries, which use cassava as feedstock to produce ethanol, in three rural regions of Colombia where self-sufficiency energy is scarce or very expensive. CIAT is a nonprofit institution that conducts research on social and environmental. Founded in 1976, this regional center, located in Latin America, specifically in Colombia, has a global reach with about two thirds of its resources devoted to research in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the remaining third devoted to research in Africa and Asia. CIAT's mission is to reduce hunger and poverty and improve human health in the tropics through research based on a vision of eco-efficient agriculture, ie agriculture, which uses the resources more efficiently, to become more competitive and achieve productivity growth more sustainable, with a smaller footprint.After this study concluded that project implementation is not feasible in Leticia and Puerto Carreño, due to the cost of ethanol production is not competitive with local fuel prices. But in La Macarena may be feasible, depending on the actual cost of biogas and the possibility of no taxes. With the implementation of a micro-refinery in La Macarena 0.5% of rural population can be given access to electricity and secondly to 7.3% of the volume of gasoline sold in rural areas may be mixed with 30% ethanol. We suggest the introduction of improved varieties of cassava to obtain higher yields per hectare and the identification of technological improvements on the conversion process of cassava into ethanol. The associations, support and training for farmers will also improve the eficiency of the studied project