ANALYSIS OF DIVERSIFICATION CAPACITY OF SUGARCANE SUPPLY ZONES BY EMERGY, LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENTAND MULTICRITERIA EVALUATION METHODOLOGIES

Abstract

The sugar industry is a productive activity of high social, economic and spatial impact; however, the challenges of global competitiveness require cost reduction, sugarcane diversification and processing of by-products. For its successful and extensive implementation, it is necessary to be methodologically addressed with multidisciplinary techniques to inventory, assess and to plan the resources, inputs, technology, energy, raw material quality and environmental impacts including diversified sugarcane agriculture and biorefinery projects. The objective was to evaluate the application of Emergy methodologies, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) for the analysis of capacities diversification of sugarcane supply areas. The results established that the agroclimatic suitability is the most important factor for diversification projects establishment in sugarcane farms when explaining the 38.1% and determines the capacity of land to produce quantity and quality raw material. In ethanol production the major energetic and environmental impact is by the agricultural
stage which represents 83% of all flows, 15% industrial stage and 2% sugarcane transport. When we consider the entire chain, economic resources and materials (36.7%) and services (26.9%), they were the main energy flow in the system. However, individually, the main contribution were rain (28%), fertilizers and pesticides (20%), while fossil fuels (6%), labor, whether hired or temporary, contributed 10% of the flows energy.