Radio Havana Cuba's Science and Technology Program:
BREAKTHROUGHFor broadcast Thursday, December 19 1999
Written and narrated by Arnaldo "Arnie" Coro, RHC's Science Editor
Sound: BK Theme
Voice ( Coro ) Hello, and welcome to Breakthrough, Radio Havana Cuba's weekly science, technology and the environment update. I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro, RHC's science editor, and it is my pleasure today to tell you about Cuba's upcoming sugar cane harvest, the 1999/2000 season that is just starting at the time you hear this show...
The Sugar Mill Siboney in Camaguey province was the first one to start making sugar for this harvest season. It is one of the sugar mills that will take part in this harvest, which is expected to be about ten percent larger in total production than the previous one. Notice that I said, one of the sugar mills that will take part in the 1999/2000 harvest season, this meaning that NOT ALL the nation's sugar mills will be working between December 1999 and May 2000. The reason why not all sugar producing installations will be working is an economic one... only the most efficient plants that produce sugar at a lower cost will be crushing sugar cane... The very difficult decision follows a similar one that was taken last year, and that proved to be a very wise one indeed.
Cuba and any other sugar producing nation can not afford to make raw brown sugar at a cost per metric ton that is higher than the prevailing world market prices for that product. The strategy by the cuban sugar industry ministry is to go for about four million metric tons of sugar during this harvest, producing at the lowest possible cost and generating as much value added items as possible. This means that only the most efficient sugar mills will start up their machinery, and it also means that a lot of electricity will be generated using the sugar cane bagass to fuel the sugar mill's generators.
This is what is known as co-generation, meaning that the mill generates electricity for its own use, and all surplus electrical output is fed to the national electrical network. MINAZ, the Ministry of the Sugar Industry sells this electricity to INEL, the national power and light company, which can then save imported oil that will otherwhise be needed to generate electricity at conventional power stations. The other value added productions include alcohol made from molasses, which is used directly for industrial applications, or to make rum, one of Cuba's foreign currency producing exports.
The sugar mills that will work during the harvest season will also follow a carefully elaborated plan to save energy, which includes the use of better insulation for all steam pipes, the use of on line computer process control in some of them and a new approach to the once a week cleaning which is needed by that industrial installation. Four milliion metric tons of raw sugar is of course, much less than what Cuba can produce, the nation's theoretical capacity for a 150 day harvest season approaches about 8 and a half million tons according to experts, but those same experts advocate for a lower target figure for brown raw sugar which has a very low world market price, shifting the sugar mill's into diversification by means of associated plants for making sugar cane byproducts like alcohol, animal feed made with molasses, yeast, and the many ways in which bagass, the leftover after crushing the sugar cane, can be used to make artificial particulate wood panels which are an excellent replacement for expensive imported plywood.
The cuban sugar industry is now the nation's second source of foreign currency, it was displaced from the number one position by the tourist trade about two years ago, but the more than half a million workers that in what way or the other make their living from sugar cane are determined to keep improving its efficiency and finding new ways of making the industry more profitable, as they claim that there is an enormous potential to further develope the sugar cane industry as an essential part of the cuban economy for the next century.
SON : BK theme
VOICE : ( Coro ) And this was Breakthrough for today, see you next week at this same time and short wave frequency with another edition of Radio Havana Cuba's science, technology and the environment update. From Havana, I am Arnie Coro now saying goodbye and wishing you seasons greetings!
For more information, via Air Mail:
"Breakthrough"
Radio Havana Cuba
PO Box 6240, Havana, CUBA 10600
Via e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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