So what happened to all that fibre
from crushing the sugar cane? It is called "bagasse"
in the industry. The factory needs electricity and
steam to run, both of which are generated using this
fibre.
The bagasse is burnt in large furnaces
where a lot of heat is given out which can be used
in turn to boil water and make high pressure steam.
The steam is then used to drive a turbine in order
to make electricity and create low pressure steam
for the sugar making process. This is the same process
that makes most of our electricity but there are several
important differences.
When a large power station produces electricity it
burns a fossil fuel [once used, a fuel that cannot
be replaced] which contaminates the atmosphere and
the station has to dump a lot of low grade heat. All
this contributes to global warming. In the cane sugar
factory the bagasse fuel is renewable and the gases
it produces, essentially CO2, are more than used up
by the new cane growing. Add to that the factory use
of low grade heat [a system called co-generation]
and one can see that a well run cane sugar estate
is environmentally friendly.
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