RADIO HABANA CUBA Hello, and welcome to Breathrough, our weekly Science, Technology and the Environment update. I am Arnaldo, Arnie Coro, RHC's Science editor, and today I'll tell you about how the nations that produce sugar from sugar cane are analyzing new ways to diversify their production in order to provide their national economies with a buffer that will help them cope with the severe oscillations of the price of sugar in the world market.
BREAKTHROUGH
Report on Science, Technology & the EnvironmentFor broadcast Sunday, October 7 & Thursday, October 11, 2001
Written and narrated by Arnaldo "Arnie" Coro, RHC's Science Editor
According to a recent meeting held here in Havana, each sugar mill that normally produces brown raw sugar can be turned into a center that can generate a lot of wealth by producing high quality animal fodder, fertilizers, ethyl alcohol, and yeast, among other products, something that can be done with rather low-cost industrial installations that do not require very sophisticated equipment.
Peter Baron, the executive director of the International Sugar Organization, has stated that in order to achieve the survival of the sugar cane industry, there is no choice but to increase productivity, lower production costs and start producing by-products as soon as possible.
The well-known sugar industry expert described how the price of brown raw sugar has stayed well below the 12 cents per pound considered to be break-even point for most nations. Baron made reference to Cuba's succesful efforts to develop sugar industry by-products, like artificial wood made from bagass -- that is, the vegetable matter that is left over after crushing the sugar cane.
Cuba now has re-opened several of the plants that produce artificial wood from sugar cane bagass, and has also installed a new ethyl alcohol plant using the most advanced technology to produce high grade alcohols from molasses feedstock.
Another important aspect to helping the sugar cane industry cope with the current world-wide economic problems is generating more electricity from biomass, something that Cuba is doing at many of its sugar mills, by installing interconnections with the national electrical network. Plans are now in the works to install a forty megawatt biomass plant as part of a project sponsored by several United Nations specialized agencies.
The use of more efficient high pressure steam generators and back pressure turbines will increase the kilowatt hours of electricity generated from each metric ton of bagass burned.
There are also some so-called low-tech, or soft technologies presently in use here in Cuba with great possibilities for application in other sugar producing countries. One of them, known in Spanish as ferti-riego, in English irrigation-fertilization, makes use of the waste water from the raw sugar production process, which is treated in a very simple and low-cost installation, and then applied to the sugar cane plantations. Several of the installations are even connected to the sugar cane fields by means of a especially designed irrigation system.
No less than 60 different products can be made at a sugar mill, from plastics to animal fodder, and each and every one of them is destined to help the ailing raw brown sugar industry not only to survive, but also to become even more profitable than ever before.
From Havana, this was another edition of Breakthrough; join me next week at the same time and short wave frequency to learn more about Science, Technology and the Environment in CUba. I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro, RHC's Science editor, now wishing you excellent reception of our next show.
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