Orlando Volpato, Delphi - AEA – Associação Brasileira de ...

Fig. 4: Location of sugar-cane farms and mills
1.2 Economic motivation for diesel substitution
There are big savings when ethanol is substituted for diesel fuel in an ethanol
producing facility.
The sugar cane farm/mill buys diesel as a big consumer, paying a price smaller than
displayed at road fuel stations. But diesel fuel should be conveniently stoked and
there is a monthly bill to be paid.
On the other side, ethanol fuel is ready available at much lower costs than at the fuel
station.
See figure 5 for estimated production costs for ethanol compiled in the 2008 F.O.
Licht ethanol report.
Fig. 5: Production cost of ethanol in different countries
Diesel fuel is more energetic (per volume or weight basis) than hydrous ethanol, in
order to substitute one liter of diesel, in energy terms, one have to use about 1.67
liters of ethanol, see table 2 below [25].
Considering the buy price of diesel and the sell price of hydrous ethanol for the last
year, the fuel economy can be evaluated, see figure 6 [30].
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