Water footprint of sugar and sugar-based ethanol

Two of the most harvested sugar crops are sugar cane and sugar beet. For hundreds of years both crops have been utilized for producing sucrose, referred to as table sugar. In the past decades, bio-ethanol production from sugar crops has grown to be competitive with sugar production. In the united states High Fructose Maize Syrups (HFMS) and maize-based ethanol are 2 alternatives for sugar and sugar crop-based ethanol. Crop production in general, and sugar cane production in particular, needs a large amount of water. The purpose of this research is to determine the water footprint of sugar, HFMS and bio-ethanol in the main producing countries, to find favourable production areas and opportunities, and to measure the affect on the water system in certain production areas.

Contents

1 Introduction
1.1 Objectives
2 Sweeteners for human consumption
2.1 Global sweetener production and consumption
2.2 Sugar
2.2.1 Sugar cane
2.2.2 Sugar beet
2.3 High fructose syrups
2.3.1 Maize
2.4 Artificial sweeteners
3 Bio-ethanol
3.1 Ethanol production
3.2 Ethanol production by feedstock
3.3 Sugar crops: competition between food and bio-ethanol
4 Methodology
4.1 Water footprint
4.2 Data sources
4.2.1 Crop parameters and climate data
4.2.2 Sugar crop and maize yields
4.2.3 Selected countries
4.2.4 Product fractions
4.2.5 Value fractions
4.2.6 Grey water footprint Results
5.1 Product and value fractions
5.1.1 Sugar cane
5.1.2 Sugar beet
5.1.3 Maize
5.2 The water footprint of sweeteners
5.2.1 Sugar cane
5.2.2 Sugar beet
5.2.3 Maize
5.2.4 Sweetener comparison
5.3 The water footprint of ethanol
5.3.1 Sugar cane
5.3.2 Sugar beet
5.3.3 Maize
5.3.4 Ethanol comparison
6 Impact assessment
6.1 Dnieper, Don and Volga
6.2 Indo-Gangetic basin
7 Conclusions
8 Discussion………

Source: University of Twente

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