Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Can substitution of imported gasoline by locally produced molasses ethanol

in Ethiopia be sustainable? An eco-efficiency assessment
Elias W. Gabisa a, b, c, Shabbir H. Gheewala a, b, *
a
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, 126 Pracha uthit Road, Bangkok, 10140, Thailand
b
Centre for Energy Technology and Environment (CEE), PERDO, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Bangkok, Thailand
c
Faculty of Chemical and Food Engineering, Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing countries in the world with a 10.9% GDP growth rate in 2017. This high
Ethiopia growth cannot be sustained without the deployment of modern energy in its different forms. To this end, the
Ethanol government is approaching the production of different types of modern and renewable energy. Among the
Eco-efficiency
renewable energy, molasses ethanol is the one given attention. This piece of research is aimed at evaluating the
Gasoline
Import substitution
sustainability of molasses ethanol production and consumption considering gasoline substitution potential and
Sustainability eco-efficiency. The results show that achieving a 10% molasses-based ethanol blend with gasoline (E10)
throughout the country is difficult even with production at full capacity of the existing factories. To achieve E10,
76.2 million liter annual production of ethanol is required, while the current production potential is only 20
million liter. The ambitious government plan of E15 by 2020 can only be achieved by 2025 if all the plants under
construction are operational by 2025 and can operate at full capacity. If the plan is achieved, 31.85, 74.5 and 159
million USD can be saved yearly from the E10, E15 and E20 mandates, respectively. Using the byproducts as
much as possible within the ethanol-processing framework significantly increases the eco-efficiency (40%) of the
products.

Ethiopian energy sector is twofold: limited access to modern energy and

dependency on traditional biomass energy [7]. A high economic growth
1. Introduction
cannot be sustained without the deployment of modern energy in its
different forms. The current modern energy, hydropower electricity, is
Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world; however, it has
serving as a significant source of electricity in the country, which
recently been showing progressive development. With a total area of
however is not yet sufficient to fulfill the national demand [8]. The per
1.104 million square kilometer and a population of above 90 million
capita energy consumption of the country is below 100 kWh per annum,
inhabitants [1], it is one of the fastest growing countries in the world
which is only one-fifth of the East African region (500 kWh) [9].
with a 10.9% GDP growth rate in 2017 [2]. Ethiopia’s economy is highly
Fifty-seven percent of Ethiopian households are connected to electricity
dependent on agriculture, which is accommodating above 80% of the
sources: 33% to the national grid and 24% through off-grid connection
country’s population [3]. Even though Ethiopia has fossil fuel reserves,
[10]. The other potentially available modern energy sector is biofuel
these have not been exploited to date. A total of about 653–1000 million
[11]. Among the biofuels, ethanol constitutes the most significant share
tonne oil shale and 297 million tonne coal reserves are registered in the
in the world and developing countries are also starting to exploit this
country [4]. In spite of this vast potential, Ethiopia remains a net fossil
potential to fulfill their energy demand [11]. Ethiopia is one of the
fuel importer.
countries which depends on bioenergy sources, and bioethanol is one of
Economic development and livelihood improvement are highly
the bioenergy sources that is being generated in Ethiopia since 2008,
interlinked with the availability of modern energy in the country [5].
next only to biogas development [12]. The ethanol production was
Most of the economic activities are dependent on modern energy [6],
established for consumption in vehicles by blending with gasoline [14].
which in turn decreases unemployment and indoor air pollution as well
Therefore, this paper addresses the imminent questions such as: How
as ensures environmental sustainability [16]. The challenge in the

* Corresponding author. The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, 126 Pracha uthit Road,
Bangkok, 10140, Thailand.
E-mail address: shabbir_g@jgsee.kmutt.ac.th (S.H. Gheewala).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.109770
Received 23 June 2019; Received in revised form 15 December 2019; Accepted 9 February 2020
Available online 17 February 2020
1364-0321/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
List of abbreviations including units and nomenclature
CO2 Carbon dioxide
E5 5% ethanol mixed with 95% gasoline
E10 10% ethanol mixed with 95% gasoline
E15 15% ethanol mixed with 85% gasoline
E20 20% ethanol mixed with 80% gasoline
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
ETB Ethiopian Birr
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GHG Greenhouse Gas
GJ Giga Joule
GVA Gross Value Added
JGSEE Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment
kgCO2eq Kilogram of carbon dioxide equivalent
kWh Kilo Watt Hour
kg Kilogram
kJ Kilo Joule
L Liter
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
TJ Terra Joule
USD United States Dollar
can Ethiopia explore the existing potential of ethanol production? How
much of gasoline could be substituted? Is the ambitious government
plan achievable? To this end, the role it could play to substitute gasoline
and save foreign currency from avoided oil imports is investigated, and
possible implementation options are suggested. It is common that for
developing countries like Ethiopia, the cost of importing fossil fuels is a
significant drain on their economy leading to political instability as well
as stagnating economic development [15]. Ethiopia is spending 70% of
the income from exporting goods for oil imports [16]. Consequently,
despite the economic and political gains, there can be immediate social
as well as environmental benefits by implementing ethanol production
to partly substitute gasoline in the country. Furthermore, the sustain­
ability of ethanol production needs to be addressed. Unless it is pro­
duced in a sustainable way, substituting the gasoline imports alone will
not guarantee socio-economic as well as environmental sustainability.
This research work thus looked at the sustainability of ethanol produc­
tion in Ethiopia using eco-efficiency indicators.
Gasoline replacement benefits has been studied by researchers in
different regions of the world. For instance, Selveira and Khatiwada
studied the potential of substituting gasoline with ethanol in the context
of Nepal considering the ethanol production potential in the country
[13]. The study in Nepal shows direct environmental and economic
gains from the substitution of gasoline with ethanol and that it is
possible to reduce gasoline import by 14% while saving US$10 million
foreign currency annually with the introduction of E20. The environ­
mental and socio-economic performance of sugarcane molasses ethanol
production has been studied in detail, basically in molasses ethanol
production countries like Brazil, Thailand, Nepal and India [13–22]. In
those studies, the primary emphasis was detailed analysis of the sus­
tainability of sugarcane molasses ethanol along its life cycle and its
socio-economic implications. However, the present study investigates
the available potential, the possibility of achieving the government’s
ambitious plan, the possible economic gain from the substitution and
finally looks into the eco-efficiency of the ethanol production. In this
regard, this work is a first of its kind to give such scientific insight of
ethanol in Ethiopia as well as the first for an East African country.
Therefore, the present study in addition to filling the information gap in
the scientific community, also gives a clear vision of the sugarcane
ethanol production development for the decision makers as well as the
policy makers in the country.
2
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides the method­
ology followed to conduct the research work. In this section, the current
trend of ethanol-gasoline blending, the retail price of gasoline, energy
utilization in the transportation sector and ethanol production potentials
are accessed and data are presented. Additionally, the eco-efficiency
methodology following life cycle assessment approach is addressed.
Section 3 presents the detailed results of the research work along with a
discussion. Finally, the paper concludes by describing the key findings
and recommendations for future work.
2. Materials and methods
In addition to calculations performed to determine the potential of
substituting gasioline with ethanol, the study used data from the Gross
and Transformation Plans (I and II) of the country as well as published
governmental reports and scholary published articles within the country
and outside. Some of the data were collected from factory records via a
field survey. Data for fossil fuel imports were extracted from the annual
report of the Ethiopian petroleum enterprise. The fossil fuel retail price
data were sourced from GIZ fuel price policies report for each of the
countries. Those data were used to see their implication on the sector
due to the replacement of fossil fuel (gasoline) import. Additionally,
they provided the current trend within the country so that the future
scenarios could be drawn. Life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was
employed to investigate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as
the energy consumption for the ethanol production in Ethiopia. The eco-
efficiency of the ethanol production was based on the findings from the
environmental impact (GHG emissions) and resource consumption
considering the gross value addition (GVA) with different alternative
scenarios.
2.1. Fuel for transportation in Ethiopia
Of the total final energy consumption of the country, about 7% is
consumed in the transportation sector which constitutes 100% of im­
ported gasoline and 70% of diesel including agricultural machinery
[25]. There are above 800,000 vehicles in the country, out of which 62%
are in the capital, Addis Ababa [26]. The Ethiopian vehicle market is
dominated by second-hand cars, which constitute more than 85% of the
imported vehicles [27].
The state-owned company, Ethiopian petroleum enterprise, is
responsible for the import and supply of petroleum for the trans­
portation sector in Ethiopia. The issue of fuel shortage in the capital as
well the different regional states has been propagated due to price
fluctuation and unfair distribution in the country. Therefore, in addition
to the unaccounted environmental burdens, there are strong socio-
economic and political reasons to investigate and implement alterna­
tive energy sources for the transportation sector. Ethanol blending with
gasoline was initiated in the capital, Addis Ababa in 2008 by mixing 5%
of ethanol with gasoline. In 2011, the blending was increased to 10%,
which was conducted by three companies, Nile petroleum, National Oil
and Oil Libya [28] (Fig. 1). However, as observed during the field sur­
vey, due to different techno-economic problems it was not as successful
as expected.
On the contrary, there is a substantial potential of hydroelectricity
generation, which could make electric vehicles attractive [29,30].
Nevertheless, to date, there are no electric vehicles in the country, and
neither are they being promoted by the government, as the existing
in-country demand for electricity is not fulfilled yet. Additionally,
Ethiopia is approaching sugar development aggressively, which could
highly encourage the production of ethanol from molasses [31].
Ethiopia has currently four operational sugar factories and ten upcoming
factories. However, due to insufficient steam going from the sugar fac­
tory to the ethanol factory, they are not producing at their maximum
capacity. The gasoline demand and the amount of ethanol production
has a considerable gap presently (Fig. 2). The upcoming factories have
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
Fig. 1. Ethanol-gasoline blending trend from the year 2008–2012 in Addis Ababa [15].
the potential to reduce the gap if serious attention is paid and standalone
energy generation is installed for the ethanol plants. When the avail­
ability of bioethanol in the country is considered, it is highly dependent
on the commitment and policy of the government to attract investors in
the area. Currently, the available potential of bioethanol production is
higher than the actual production. This is because all the
ethanol-producing factories are owned by the government and not much
attention is given as it is not their main product. However, the pro­
duction cost in Ethiopia (0.35USD/L) is comparable with other countries
such as Thailand (0.14USD/L) [32], Pakistan (0.4USD/L) [32] and
Brazil (0.214 USD/L) [33].
2.2. Energy in the transport sector in Ethiopia-is it possible to reduce fossil
dependency by introducing ethanol?
The per capita energy consumption of Ethiopia is very low as
compared to even developing countries [34]. The total primary energy
supply of Ethiopia was 36,370 ktoe in the year 2015 [33]. About 89%
was consumed in the form of traditional biomass energy followed by
petroleum fuel (7%) [35,36]. The consumption of the household sector
was estimated to be 90% of the final energy in the form of biomass.
Ethiopia is a net importer of fossil fuels. The Ethiopian Petroleum Supply
Enterprise imported 3.5 million metric tonnes of fossil fuels in the form
of gasoline (10.5%), diesel (63.8%), jet oil (23.4%), light fuel oil (1.2%)
Fig. 2. Gasoline import and ethanol production trend in Ethiopia (The gasoline demand less ethanol produced is in terms of gasoline energy equivalent) [16].
3
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
and heavy fuel oil (1.1%) in the year 2016–17 [35]. The imported fuels
are consumed in different sectors of the economy such as industry,
service and transportation. Gasoline is entirely consumed in the trans­
portation sector while diesel is consumed in both the transportation and
industrial sectors.
The retail price of gasoline changed from USD 0.27 per liter in 1991
to USD 0.52 in 2002 and USD 1.08 in 2012 (Fig. 3) [37]. The retail price
of gasoline in Ethiopia is the least in Africa following the oil-producing
countries such as Sudan and Libya [34].The price of gasoline in Ethiopia
has increased by more than two folds in the last ten years, which is due
to the global price increase of crude oil (from USD 12.1 per barrel in
1991 to 27.5 in 2003) [35]. The price of oil products is reviewed every
month by the Ministry of Trade, and adjustments are made if necessary.
Since 2008, the government of Ethiopia has stopped the policy of sub­
sidizing petroleum fuels. Since then the domestic price is set higher than
import cost so that the accumulated debts in the oil subsidizing fund can
be repaid [36].
All the above and other issues show that dependency on oil imports
puts a massive burden on the economy of the country. The issue of air
pollution and energy security are also alarming on the other hand, which
has a direct relation with fossil fuel consumption in the transport sector.
According to the World Energy Outlook of the International Energy
Agency (2016), more than 210,000 premature deaths are occurring
annually due to outdoor pollution in Africa [37]. By 2040, more than
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
Fig. 3. The retail (selling) price of gasoline and diesel in Ethiopia [19].
half of the population in Africa is expected to live in polluted urban areas
[38]. To this end, since 2016 Ethiopia has devised and installed air
quality measuring instruments in Addis Ababa, which is the most
populated city in the country.
2.3. Ethanol production potential in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has a potential of producing 326 million liters of ethanol per
year from sugarcane molasses only without compromising the sugar
production (food) [20]. The current yearly production of ethanol from
the two existing factories is 20 million liters, which is only 6% of the
potential. The government has planned to introduce a mandate of
blending 15% ethanol with gasoline by 2020 and 20% by 2025 [34,42].
The basis for this ambitious plan was the ten sugar projects that are
under construction and supposed to be operational by 2025 with full
capacity, which can produce 195 million liters of ethanol when made
fully operational [39]. Regardless of the significant production of
ethanol from the operational factories, 3.3% of the spark ignition energy
requirement can be substituted presently at a reasonable price [30]. This
demand substitution is projected to double in the year 2030 [13].
Ethiopia is a net importer of gasoline and other fossil fuels for internal
consumption [40]. In the year 2017–18, 490 million liters of gasoline
were imported, an increment of 19% from the previous year; the trend of
import increment has been 19–22% per year for the last five successive
years [30,35]. The government plans to produce 130 million liter
ethanol by 2020 and 195 million liter by 2025 [42]. Therefore, the
primary objective of this section is to validate whether this ambitious
government goal is achievable or not.
2.4. Eco-efficiency assessment
Eco-efficiency is used to measure the sustainability of a product/
service by considering both environmental and economic indicators. It
clearly shows whether the economic gain is at the cost of environmental
burdens or not. The eco-efficiency concept was introduced by the World
Bank in 1992 [41]. Since it brings together the essential ingredients of
the environment and economy, it has been widely recognized by the
business sector [42]. Eco-efficiency has been recently used to evaluate
the sustainability of different products such as molasses ethanol [19],
farm-scale biogas [43] and biodiesel from Jatropha curcas fruit [44].
Eco-efficiency is generally represented as in Equation (1) below [24]:
Product or Service Value
(1)
Environmental Influence
4
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
There are different indicators suggested by developers and used by
the researchers, like gross value added (economic) and, energy con­
sumption and GHG emissions (environmental) [45]. In this particular
paper, gross value added is considered as an indicator of the product
value, and energy consumption and life cycle GHG emissions as envi­
ronmental indicators.
So, the eco-efficiency is re-stated as in Equation (2) below [25]:
Gross ​ Value ​ Added ​ ðGVAÞ
Eco efficiency ¼ (2)
GHG emissions= Energy consumption
2.4.1. Gross value added
Gross value added (GVA) is the difference between market price and
production cost of the product as shown in Equation (3) [25,46].
Gross ​ Value ​ Addedproduct ​ ¼ ​ Selling ​ Priceproduct Production ​ Costproduct
(3)
The final products obtained along the life cycle of ethanol production
in Ethiopia are sugar, hydrous ethanol and anhydrous ethanol (Table 1).
For a fair comparison of the different alternative scenarios, the GVA,
energy consumed and GHG emissions are considered based on the same
reference unit, i.e. per tonne of sugarcane processed.
Different alternative scenarios have been considered in this study
(Table 2). The alternatives are developed based on the byproduct (cane
trash and vinasse) utilization within or outside of the production value
chain and changing the agricultural practice in sugarcane farming i.e.
from manual harvesting to mechanical harvesting (Fig. 4).
2.4.2. Life cycle GHG emissions
Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to calculate
the GHG emissions from ethanol production in Ethiopia. This ISO-
standardized methodology has become mainstream in assessing the
environmental impacts of supply chains [47,48]. It has already been
applied by various researchers to assess the impacts of ethanol
Table 1
Market prices and production cost of final products.
Products Market Price Production cost
Sugar 16 5.75
Molasses Ethanol Hydrous 14.59 4.15
Anhydrous 9.37 5.29
a
The unit for market price and production cost of sugar is ETB/kg, and it is ETB/
L for molasses (1 USD ¼ 28.3 ETB). Source: Factory data book during factory
visit.
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770

Table 2 and Morocco these days. Data on energy used during fertilizer produc­
Definition of different alternative scenarios [23]. tion were taken from the fuel consumed during fertilizer production in
Scenarios Description Russia for the year 2013 [58], and some are from the well-established
databases like GREET 1.7 [53]. Furthermore, the excess energy pro­
Base case Conventional sugarcane farming þ sugar processing þ ethanol
processing duced from biogas and cane trash is credited for and included in the
Alternative 1 Base case þ bio-slurry utilization þ biogas electricity energy balance analysis.
Alternative 2 Alternative 1 þ mechanical harvesting þ electricity from cane trash
utilization
3. Results and discussion

production in several countries, e.g. in Nepal and Indonesia [49], 3.1. Energy in the transport sector in Ethiopia
Thailand [50], China [51] and Brazil [52]. The LCA software SimaProV8
was used to build up the process trees and compile the results based on The substitution potential of the current ethanol production, the
the ReCiPe 2016 midpoint Hierarchist method for the impact charac­
terization [53]. The emission factors for this study were taken from Table 3
scholarly published papers [49,54] and well-established database, Lower heating values of gasoline, ethanol and blended fuels [59].
GREET 1.7 [53]. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Fuel Type Lower heating value, MJ/kg
emission factors were also used for emissions related to fertilizer pro­
Gasoline 43.4
duction and application [54]. Another important source of emissions is Ethanol, 100% 26.7
cane trash burning. Even though it is not recommended, the practice of E10 41.3
cane trash burning is being used as the only way of trash removal in E15 40.23
sugarcane farming in Ethiopia [55]. The method for determination of E20 39.59

non-CO2 emissions from sugarcane trash burning was adopted from

Nguyen et al. 2007 [56]. Since cane trash is biomass and hence
considered carbon neutral, CO2 emission from burning of the cane trash Table 4
is not accounted for in the GHG emission calculations. Gasoline import, ethanol production potential and possible blending options.
Year 2017 2020 2025
2.4.3. Energy balance analysis Gasoline import, TJ/y 16 25 40
The energy balance is carried out following the basic principles of the Ethanol production, TJ/y (million L) 0.68 (20) 2.73 (130) 4.1
first law of thermodynamics [57]. The lower heating values of the fuels (195.2)
are taken into consideration while performing the energy analysis Ethanol required for E10, TJ/y (million 1.6
L) (76.2)
(Table 3). Primary energy, by definition, is the sum of fuel energy
Ethanol required for E15, TJ/y (million 3.75
content and the energy inputs along the life cycle of the product or L) (178.5)
service [33]. The energy inputs in the production of ethanol in Ethiopia Ethanol required for E20, TJ/y (million 8 (381)
are diesel, gasoline, bagasse and hydropower electricity [36]. In L)
Ethiopia, chemical fertilizers are imported from Russia (before 2 years) Direct substitution saving, million USD 31.8 74.5 159

Fig. 4. Process flow diagram of sugarcane biorefinery complex in Ethiopia [20].

5
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
government plan and the energy equivalence of the fuel is the basis to
calculate the substitution of the projected years (Table 4).
By considering the heating value of gasoline (32.7 MJ/L) and ethanol
(21 MJ/L), the potential of gasoline substitution and direct saving from
the substitution are estimated [60]. Direct saving from the import sub­
stitution is evaluated by taking the current price of gasoline and the
amount of substituted gasoline according to their energy equivalence.
To achieve E10 throughout the country, 76.2 million liters yearly
ethanol production is required, while the current production potential is
20 million liters. The ambitious government plan of E15 by 2020 will
only be achieved by 2025 provided that all the plants under construction
are operational by 2025 with a full capacity (Table 5). To achieve E20 by
2025, there should be 381 million liters ethanol production, which is the
total potential of the country and it is impossible to achieve it by the
current plan. If the gasoline import becomes stagnant at 16 TJ per year
up to 2025, the E15 mandate can be achieved by 2025. If the ambitious
government plan is achieved 31.85, 74.5 and 159 million USD can be
saved yearly from the E10, E15,and E20 mandates, respectively. How­
ever, due to the higher consumption of gasoline, it is difficult to attain
these goals as planned. In addition to import substitution and financial
gain, blending ethanol with gasoline also has an environmental gain. It
has been reported that using 10% blending of ethanol with gasoline
contributes to a reduction of 12–19% GHG emission and 30% carbon
monoxide [61]. Additionally, it contributes to the reduction of other
pollutants which are responsible for local health problems, like carci­
nogenic substances [60].
3.2. Life cycle GHG emissions of the different alternative scenarios
Considering the market price and yield of the products, 20% of the
upstream process emissions are allocated to molasses generations and
the GHG emissions obtained are 54.4, 55.67 and 35.27 kgCO2eq per GJ
of ethanol produced for the base case, Alternative 1 and Alternative 2,
respectively. In the case of the base case and Alternative 1, 75% of the
GHG emission is contributed by the agricultural stage while it accounts
for 58% in the case of Alternative 2. The results revealed that the
improvement of sugarcane farming practice (changing from manual to
mechanical) and integrated utilization of cane trash and vinasse brings
about a reduction in GHG emissions of the final products i.e., molasses
ethanol and the sugar. This implies that proper utilization of the
different byproducts for different purposes can help to improve the GHG
emission performance of molasses ethanol production. Mechanized
farming combined with cane trash utilization for electricity generation
shows the highest GHG emissions reduction, which is the case of
Alternative 2 (Fig. 5). Using bio-slurry from the biogas plant from
ethanol wastewater did not show much improvement in GHG emission.
However, the application of the bio-slurry provides an extra benefit of
moisturizing the soil so that the quality of the soil is also improved. The
other contributor to GHG emission is the consumption of lime and
phosphoric acid during molasses generation in the base case and
Alternative 1 [62]. In the case of Alternative 2, the contribution from
agriculture decreases by 50%. The contribution from ethanol process­
ing, estimated at 9%, comes from the consumption of urea in the
fermentation process.
Table 5
Ambitious government plan and potentially achievable ethanol-gasoline
blending in Ethiopia. The plan and achievement was sourced from GTP II [42].
Status Year
2010 2015 2020 2025
Planned E10 E15 E15 E20
Potential E5 E5 E10 E15
Achieved E5
<E5 – –
6
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
3.3. Gross value added
The gross value added of the products is calculated using Equation
(3) and the data provided in Table 1. For the base case scenario, the
production cost of the products and selling prices along the value chain
are applied. Alternative 1 assumes there is negligible additional value
added from the fertilizer (bio-slurry from biogas production) as there is
no market for that. For Alternative 2, the cost of fuel consumed in the
mechanical harvester and cane trash transportation to the factory is
assumed more or less similar to the labor payment for manual harvesting
per tonne of cane. This is in line with studies from Sudan and India. For
example, in the case of Sudan’s sugarcane farming practice, the cost of
manual harvesting is 0.19 USD while for mechanical harvesting is 0.1
USD per tonne of cane [63]. Similarly, in India, the cost of manual
harvesting is higher than mechanical harvesting by 44%, which shows a
similar implication with the previous study in Sudan [64]. Cane trash
transportation fuel consumption cost (0.1 USD per tonne of cane) is
taken into consideration to calculate the cost of cane trash trans­
portation to the factory. Therefore, the cost of mechanical harvesting
(0.1 USD per tonne of cane) plus the cost of cane trash transportation
adds up to 0.2 USD per tonne of cane (~0.19 USD per tonne of cane),
which is the cost for manual harvesting. To determine the value addition
from cane trash recovery for electricity generation, the current selling
price of electricity of 0.06 USD is considered. The production cost of the
electricity is collected from factory data for bagasse electricity, which is
0.015 USD/kWh. Considering the above assumptions, the overall value
addition from mechanical harvesting and cane trash recovery is esti­
mated to be 0.4 USD per tonne of cane (Fig. 6).
3.4. Energy analysis
Twenty percent of the energy use in sugarcane cultivation and
molasses generation has been allocated to ethanol production consid­
ering the price and yield of the products (sugar, anhydrous and hydrous
ethanol). About 60% percent of the molasses goes for production of
hydrous ethanol, the remaining for anhydrous ethanol. The energy
analysis per tonne of cane has been carried out taking 7.8 L ethanol yield
per tonne of cane, which is the current trend in the factories. It can easily
be seen from Fig. 7 that for all the products, Alternative 2 performs
better (generates more energy). This is due to the associated energy
generation from the byproducts, viz. vinasse and cane trash. Since 80%
of the energy consumed in the upstream is allocated to the sugar, the
energy performance of sugar is lower or it consumes high energy.
3.5. Comparison of Ethiopian ethanol production energy analysis with
other countries
Full chain energy analysis of molasses ethanol production has been
conducted in different countries of the world such as Brazil [52],
Thailand [56], Indonesia [49], India [65] and many others. The study in
Thailand considers the full life cycle and comes up with the result of
26.85 MJ/L net energy input (17.41 MJ/L for this study). Compara­
tively, the ethanol processing stage consumes much energy in the case of
the study in Thailand (68.8%), while it is 46% in the present study. In
the case of the study conducted in Thailand, the molasses generation
stage consumes 14.7% and in Indonesia 38% of the net energy input
while it is 35% in this case study.
For the case of Nepal, the net energy input after allocation is 34.3
MJ/L and the share of fossil fuel is only 8.3%. The share of fossil fuel
energy input in this study is 23.5%. The NEB and NREB of 13.05 MJ/L
and 18.36 MJ/L, respectively were recorded [66]. However, the amount
of input energy requirements differs from place to place depending on
the process energy requirement and employed technology. The study in
Nepal shows that the energy consuming life cycle stage is sugarcane
milling, while molasses conversion consumes more energy in the case
for this study as well the study in Thailand. It is clear that the energy
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
Fig. 5. Life cycle GHG emission contribution of different life cycle stages of ethanol production in Ethiopia considering three scenarios (Base, Alternative 1 and
Alternative 2).
Fig. 6. Gross value addition of the biorefinery complex products under different alternative scenarios.
consuming life cycle stage of the three studies are different. This may
arise from the different technologies applied to the different life cycle
stages, the difference in the followed allocation procedure of the studies
and also the chosen system boundary. This makes more interesting the
area for research to see the optimal option for molasses bioethanol
production along the life cycle stages.
3.6. Eco-efficiency analysis
The eco-efficiency of the three products (Sugar, Hydrous Ethanol and
Anhydrous Ethanol) is determined considering the market values of the
product in the current market per cubic meter of ethanol produced. Even
though prices of products are generally highly volatile, since all those
products are produced in Ethiopia from the government company, their
selling price was fixed for the last three years. The eco-efficiency anal­
ysis shows that using vinasse as a fertilizer and cane trash for excess
electricity, which will contribute in a reduction of GHG emissions
7
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
significantly, is more favorable than that of the other systems (Fig. 8).
In summary, for all the products Alternative 2 shows a better eco-
efficiency. This is because in Alternative 2, the GHG emission is signif­
icantly reduced, cane trash burning is avoided, and the net energy
consumption is reduced (energy generation is maximized from cane
trash and biogas). Even though there is an increased amount of fossil fuel
consumption during harvesting in Alternative 2, the energy generated
from cane trash offsets it. For the purpose of comparison, the amount of
output must be the same. The gross value added is also increased in later
alternatives as compared to the base case since there is a gain from extra
energy generated from cane trash and saving from chemical fertilizer
consumption for the amount replaced by bio-slurry. Generally, maxi­
mizing the byproduct utilization and avoiding cane trash burning in the
sugarcane bio-refinery system has a significant contribution to GHG
emission reduction, net energy consumption and increase in gross value
added, which in turn, increases the eco-efficiency.
The production of ethanol from sugarcane molasses is really the
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala
Fig. 7. Energy consumption of products with different alternative scenarios.
Fig. 8. Eco-efficiency of different products for different production alternative scenarios.
application of eco-effective approach as it converts all the waste from
sugar process to products (cradle-to-cradle). In bioethanol production
from sugarcane molasses the utilization of wastewater for biogas,
organic fertilizer recovery and cane trash for energy generation shows
that the system is eco-effective while reducing resource and energy
consumption (eco-efficiency) for the betterment of the environment.
The collective outcome of the utilization of the byproducts (which could
have been considered as a waste) leads to the increment in the eco-
effectiveness by 40%.
4. Conclusions and recommendations
The study looked at the possibility and the extent of partial substi­
tution of gasoline with bioethanol and its sustainability considering eco-
efficiency indicator. Accordingly, from the study, it can be concluded
that there is a possibility to partially substitute gasoline by ethanol
produced from sugarcane molasses. However, the extent of replacement
depends on the efficiency of implementation of the ongoing projects.
The results show that achieving a 10% molasses-based ethanol blend
8
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770
with gasoline (E10) throughout the country is difficult even with pro­
duction at full capacity of the existing factories. To achieve E10, 76.2
million liter annual production of ethanol is required, while the current
production potential is only 20 million liter. The ambitious government
plan of E15 by 2020 can only be achieved by 2025 if all the plants under
construction are operational by 2025 and can operate at full capacity. If
the plan is achieved, 31.85, 74.5 and 159 million USD can be saved
yearly from the E10,E15 and E20 mandates respectively.
To ensure adequate ethanol-gasoline blending and reducing the
import of gasoline, there should be a substantial development in the
ethanol sector as well, which is not possible without affecting the food
sector, sugar and agricultural crops via land use change. Instead, looking
for other possible options like electric vehicle promotion by maximizing
the hydropower generation will have significant contribution to sub­
stitute the gasoline import. Developing the country’s available fossil fuel
reserves will also play a significant role by reducing dependence on
imported fossil fuels.
E.W. Gabisa and S.H. Gheewala Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 123 (2020) 109770

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