quote:
Originally posted by ʆë®Ñï†Ý:
Heh, they should make paper out of sugar cane residue ~noddz~ it's very white and fibrous. Then we could keep our trees *beaming* and I expect the processing needed after sugar cane has been processed for sugar is much less than that of processing trees. Therefore it would be more cost efficient! ~clapps~ wouldn't that be great?! Use another industry's waste as our raw material, just like breeder nuclear power stations! [img]smile.gif[/img]
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Re-use the waste streams. Great idea Sir, but (as Kryten said to the Cat) with two minor flaws. One, there are no waste streams in sugar processing, and Two, there are no waste streams in sugar processing. Now Miss Eternitease, that might seem like only one mistake, but it was such a biggy that I thought it worth mentioning twice
.
The fibres from sugar cane processing are not waste. They are burnt in the factory boilers (instead of fossil fuels) to generate power and electrickery. The sugar mill I used to work for (ie 8 years pre University, in a hellhole responsible for making me give up Chemistry for Chemical Engineering) managed to generate all it's own power and steam, and export 10MW to the local grid. The only purchased power and fossil fuel used was in factory restart. AsI mentioned there are no waste streams from sugar processing - mud is sent back to the farms as fertiliser, molasses is sold off to ethanol and rum distilleries, and sugar is money (well sometimes).
It is a fact of some great mirth, that the compound that is the single worst chemical blight on sugar processing rate and yield is the wonder drug of a million uses when it comes to alumina manufacturing
.
BAD Mousey, BAD, BAD Mousey - they were general engineer sayings - someone has shared a pint with Mouse-Boy, so he knows someone is a Chemical Engineer
. Although I do recall trying a number of aproaches at work today
.