Sweetfuel

Geopolitical tensions in some oil producing regions, uncertainties surrounding the future availability of non-renewable resources, and the need to mitigate negative impacts on climate through limitation of CO2 release, have awakened a strong interest for bio fuels and encouraged research in this area.

Biofuels or agrofuels, defined as solid, liquid or gas fuels derived from biomass, are today the only direct substitute for oil on a significant scale particularly in transport sector.

Whether bioethanol represents a viable alternative to oil depends on the raw material and location of production. Production from sugarcane in Brazil has a positive energy balance and allows great GHG savings, but production from corn in the USA results in less positive if not sometimes negative balances.

Among the different crops that have been envisaged to produce ethanol, sweet sorghum seems to have a great untapped potential.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. (Moench)) is a C4 plant that has very interesting characteristics:

1. its growth cycle is short (about four months),
2. the crop can be established from seed,
3. its production can be completely mechanized,
4. it produces sugar in stalk, and starch in grain,
5. it has a high water and nutrient use efficiency,
6. the bagasse produced from sweet sorghum has high biological value when used as forage
7. it has a wide adaptability to environment.

Finally, unlike sugarcane and maize, sweet sorghum has little breeding history and the potential of production improvement through genetic enhancement is thus very high.