The Hindu : Front Page : Alternative fuel from sugarcane trash

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Sunday, Feb 21, 2010
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Alternative fuel from sugarcane trash

Staff Reporter

TIRUNELVELI: Making of carbon briquettes, a cost-effective alternative fuel from the sugarcane trash, is gradually picking up in the district.

The collection of wood for fuel or illegal felling of trees for firewood also exert pressure on forest and the smoke emanating from the burning wood affects the health of women. Hence identifying an alternative fuel that does not affect the environment as well as the housewives’ health has become a compulsion.

Sugarcane is cultivated on 5,732 ha in the district. An estimate shows that 10 tonnes of sugarcane dry leaves or trash is generated from the sugarcane cultivated on every hectare. Because it has no value as cattle fodder and since it also resists easy decomposition, the trash is burnt to clear the field for the next crop.

This kind of burning leads to environmental hazards through mass liberation of carbon in the atmosphere even as the heat exerted on the ground kills the soil-borne beneficial micro-organisms and earthworms that maintain soil fertility and soil health. It is found that this sugarcane trash can be converted to useful products through environmentally benign technology. The dry sugarcane leaves are sliced into pieces and burnt inside a metal barrel. The ash is mixed with rice water, put in the briquette-maker and dried in the sunlight.

“Making of fuel briquettes from sugarcane trash can be a very profitable, small-scale, rural business. Farmers, women self-help group members can be trained in this technology and can be started as a family business enterprise. A family unit of three can produce 100 kg briquettes every day, which enjoy good demand in rural and urban areas, where a cheap and cleanly burning fuel is in high demand. Marketing of the briquettes can be arranged through non-governmental organisations, SHGs or SHG federation,” said Assistant General Manager, NABARD, Tirunelveli, J. Suresh.

Families making the briquettes can thus earn Rs. 800 to Rs. 1,000 daily, which is equivalent to the income of an urban middle class family. If the 16 weeks of the monsoon season are excluded, such a unit can work for about 36 weeks in a year, earning about Rs. 2 lakh including a profit of Rs. 1.50 lakh annually.

“This revenue works out to be more than Rs.10, 000 a month, a very good income by Indian rural standards,” Mr. Suresh said.

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