Georgetown: The Agriculture Ministry is gradually reducing the importation of ethanol as it eyes the large scale production of bio-ethanol production in Guyana.
Agriculture Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy made this disclosure to Guyana Times even as he reported that the $85 million Bio-ethanol Demonstration Plant at the Albion Sugar Estate was fulfilling its mandate.
Bio-ethanol produced via this multimillion-dollar plant is being used in laboratories across the eight estates and seven factories within the sugar industry. The plant produces both hydrous and anhydrous ethanol for these laboratories. It is also designed to produce ethanol for biomedical laboratories.
It was explained that prior to the establishment to the demonstration plant, ethanol was either sourced locally or imported, however, with this new intervention, the Agriculture Ministry through the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is gradually reducing the amount imported due to its ability to produce bio-ethanol.
“A small part of our operation is now transformed from procurement from an external source to production inside the industry,” Dr Ramsammy explained.
Additionally, the demonstration plant continues to supply 20 vehicles within the Agriculture Ministry, GuySuCo and the National Agriculture Research and Extension Institution (NAREI) with an E10 blend of fuel.
The gasoline used to fuel these vehicles contains 10 per cent of ethanol. Vehicles fuelled by the demo plant carrier stickers indicating that they are using a locally blend of fuel.
This comes after the Corporation last December installed a fuel blender at the bio-ethanol demonstration plant funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Japanese Special Fund for Sustainable Energy and Climate.
After approximately one year of the production of the E10 blend of fuel, GuySuCo in close collaboration with the Agriculture Ministry will soon conduct an analysis to determine the effectiveness of this blend.
“We are still in the testing phase but so far we have not encountered any problem with the shift from regular gasoline verses the blended fuel. We have not seen that it had any negative impact on the functioning of our vehicles,” Dr Ramsammy further explained.
According to him, the analytical study will also determine whether it is economically viable to use the blended fuel.
“So we are comparing mileage that you get from a gallon of blended fuel verses the non-blended fuel.”
If proven to be efficient, Minister Ramsammy said Guyana in the future would be required to put bio-ethanol legislation in place to legislate for the use of blended fuel in the transportation sector. Such legislation, he emphasised would allow for large-scale production, thereby creating a new market in the local arena.
The Bio-ethanol Demonstration Plant was commissioned in August 2013 by President Donald Ramotar at the Albion Sugar Factory. It was designed to fulfil three primary objectives: demonstrate the production of fuel grade ethanol locally, provide fuel for future demonstration of the use of ethanol as a vehicle source; and develop the facility for training of local personnel in biofuel technologies.
The demonstration plant is a two-component system: the first produces hydrous ethanol (95 per cent from molasses) and the second anhydrous ethanol (99.9 per cent) using membrane technology.
These systems were designed by Green Bio of Porto Alegre in Brazil and the second by White Fox from Calgary, Canada.
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