Life Cycle Assessment of Cane-sugar in Indonesian Sugar Mill: Energy Use and GHG Emissions

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the life cycle assessment (LCA) of sugar cane production at PG Ngadirejo, that is consist of sugar cane cultivation, transportation and sugar processing. The objective of the study was to identify and review the critical areas of potential Global Warning Potential (GWP) environmental impacts in sugarcane life cycle on PG Ngadirejo. Energy consumption in the sugarcane life cycle is 116.562.52 MJ/ton sugar where the largest consumption in coal energy usage 87%. The relative contribution of CO 2 emission contributor, sugar processing contributes the biggest GHG emission of 96.4% (10.728 ton CO 2 /ton of sugar) with the use of fossil fuels reaching 9,344 ton CO 2 /ton sugar (87%). In sugarcane cultivation, fertilizer manufacture contributed the largest environmental impact of 0.29 tons CO 2 /ton of sugar 73.48%, pesticide manufacture 22.5%, and mechanization 4%. The emission reduction from bagasse that replaces fossil fuels in sugar production is 2.43 tons CO2-eq/ton of sugar, reaching 25% of total CO 2 /ton sugar emissions. Some options for the environmental performance improvement of sugarcane including the optimal use of fertilizers and pesticides, the concentration of sugar mills, co-generation project implementation.