The Availability and Assessment of Potential Agricultural Residues for the Regional Development of Second-Generation Bioethanol in Thailand

The agricultural sector is a major source of biomass feedstocks for biofuels. Even though biomass potential in Thailand has been analyzed on a national level, its distribution and potential have yet to be assessed on a regional and provincial scale. Therefore, the study aims to verify the possibility of decentralized second-generation bioethanol production from regionally available agricultural residues. Most of the generated residues stem from the country's major crops (sugarcane, cassava, rice and palm), totaling 174.1 million tons per year. The volume of bioethanol from these residues is projected to be 20,213.5 million liters per year, meeting 31.2% of the overall fuel demand of the transport sector. At the regional level, the northeast produces the highest amount of bioethanol at 9099.7 million liters per year, followed by the central, northern and southern regions. In terms of provincial distribution, the highest amount of bioethanol is converted in Nakhon Ratchasima, amounting to 1328 million liters per year. Data from the top ten potential provinces suggest that decentralizing production facilities is possible. One of the hotspots is Surat Thani in the south which can potentially utilize palm residues as feedstocks. This regionalized assessment also found that conventional feedstocks could be substituted with regionally available residues in the 26 production plants currently in operation. The results confirm that there would be enough alternative regional feedstocks to meet existing production capacities and they indicate that there would be enough regional residues left over for future value-added utilization. GRAPHICS