Visão do potencial de produção de bioenergia da cana-de-açúcar em Angola

Abstract

Due to its predominantly humid tropical climate, Angola presents favorable conditions for producing energy crops, the development of which depends on the existence of areas for cultivation. The present study's focus was to evaluate the availability of suitable land and the production of sugar cane, a highly efficient crop in converting solar energy into biomass for energy purposes in Angola. To this end, the Global Agro-Ecological Zones database, GAEZ v4, developed by IIASA and FAO, was used with the help of the QGIS-Białowieża software (version 3.22.5) to identify areas suitable for sugarcane cultivation. sugar, considering different fitness levels. Aiming for the sustainability of bioenergy production, areas dedicated to food production, protected areas, and areas with slopes above 16% were excluded. Under these criteria, this study identified the existence of 6.3 Mha of land of good agricultural suitability, with water resources for irrigation, corresponding respectively to 5% of the Angolan territory, distributed in seven provinces of the country, especially in the provinces of Cuando Cubango and Cunene, where 85% of prime quality land under irrigation is located. Adopting an agricultural productivity model, depending on rainfall and temperature, and assuming appropriate agricultural practices, the production potential in these two provinces could reach 817 Mt/year of sugar cane, well above current production in Angola, lower than 1 Mt/year. Four alternative scenarios from 1G ethanol production to 1G2G integration were proposed for bioenergy production and four environmental impact analysis scenarios for the use of ethanol as a fuel in comparison to gasoline. The results obtained from bioenergy production indicated that the CIV-1G2G scenario using energy sugarcane is promising with annual production of 106 GL of ethanol, increasing by 2,7% compared to the CIII-1G2G scenario using conventional sugarcane. Electricity is highlighted in the CII-1G scenario (177 TWh) of annual production, as part of the straw is used to generate excess electricity, producing 65% more compared to CIV-1G2G, which uses part of the lignocellulosic material for the production of 2G ethanol. The scenario of using E10 ethanol can mitigate up to 500 ktCO2-eq. when compared to the impact of gasoline in the country in 2021. Electricity from bagasse can reduce emissions by 3.4 MtCO2-eq. emissions generated by the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity.