The possibility in Europe of having a biorefinery for first generation bioethanol production using sweet sorghum should be considered if the size of the plant is of about 15,000 t/y of produced ethanol. Maybe this reality could be applicable in European Countries.
For the supply of this plant could be sufficient 1200 hectars cultivated with sweet sorghum, and the sustainability could be possible if all the by-products ( e.g. residual bagasse after crushing for heat and power generation, residual vinasse after fermentation for biogas production, etc.) are fully exploited.
For future developments, also the production of second generation ethanol from the residual bagasse of sorghum should be considered.

thanks for your suggestion! I agree with you!

I recently spoke to the smallest refinery in Texas about their need for ethanol. Their production capacity is rated at 8.700 m3 per day. They use ~454 m3 per day; 165.710 m3 per year. They are open to the idea of purchasing small landowner (local) ethanol production. Spot price for last week was $1.50/gal ($0.3964/litre). Rack price was $1.74 ($0.459). The contract pull-through price will determine much of the viability for moving forward with our project. There are considerations for solid fuel (brickettes) and self-use fuel. Food or forage is minor given the vast array of other sources.
As we progress in our production plans and feasibility, I will report our findings.

Cecil, the price of $ 0.459 per liter refers to the anhydrous ethanol (99.8% ethanol) or to the hydrated ethanol (95%) ?

Dear Cecil, have you some data about the price of sweet-sorghum in your Country ?

Dear Eugenio, I see that my answer to your question is missing. Sorry. I must have made some mistake.
Second try.
We are in our infancy for this project and do not have firm costs. One problem we have is availability of seed. The universities seem to have much of the seed supply locked-up for their research and are not sharing for commercial ventures. This constraint has changed because there is now another source in Texas. I do not know the seed unit cost. It seems variety M81 seed is a good choice for our area. Our information at this stage is to expect 375 to 600 gallons per acre in East Texas (~3.500 to ~5.600 litres per hectare) of fuel ethanol at a juice distillation + refinement rate of 75% using a molecular sieve process. With this basis we will investigate the target margin we need. Seed cost will be one element. If December 2010’s contract price of $2.60 per gallon is the gross selling price (~ €0.51 per litre), then our basis cost needs to around $1.45 (€0.29) to make a sustainable profit.
As a secondary product, we are considering making solid fuel briquettes from the waste bagasse and from waste wood sawdust with or without adding sorghum bagasse. We have a large amount of wood sawdust from railroad cross-ties and lumber mills in East Texas.
To answer others, I am referring to anhydrous ethanol in my postings. We are expecting news soon about the tax subsidy for ethanol. It is currently $0.45 per gallon. Perhaps the brilliance of our politicians will carry the day in Congress (smile).

Dear Denis,

the briquettes or pellets are focused mainly for using at small scale on small domestic boilers. The price is going to be higher than the biomass without densification, so its use is not focused for industrial production.
About the ash or emissions, the problems are going to be similar to the use of bagasse, but the advantage of the densification is that you can mix this biomass with others to improve the results.

Could be interesting try to make a test between several companies to evaluate the result in different conditions. For example, we have in CARTIF three different biomass boilers and a pellet production plant.

Apart from this, we need to think about the new European normative for Agripellets, different from the DIN Plus normative for pellets. In this case, if the bagasse pellets are into the range of this norm, could be other market for sweet sorghum.

Dear Guys
I’m working in a new company and we are selling a product for sorghum. It increse the growing of root of about 700%, water absorption, and increase the production of grain by 30%.
Maybe someone of you know the azospirillum. Our product contain 2*10^9 CFU if azospirillum and the expiry date is of 2 year.
Our product is one of the best of the world in matter of quality and duration. We have the iso 9001 certificate and For sorghum only 200g of product can mixed with 50Kg of seeds. But the pricipal benefit is to forget the use of nitrogen.
If you want know more contact me
[email protected] ,
I’ll glad to answer you and maybe send 3/4 package.