4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
LCC analysis provides relevant information for stakeholders since it allows to compare an energy alternative like fuel ethanol to conventional gasoline and contributes guidelines for making improvements. The case study of fuel ethanol from cassava in Thailand leads to the following conclusions: Considering the end use of ethanol fuel, a comparison between gasohol and gasoline should be done based on fuel economy, i.e., how many kilometers per litre a car fueled with gasohol or gasoline can run, rather than energy content or volumetric basis. More than half of ethanol production cost is contributed by feedstock price. A possible measure to make ethanol in the form of gasohol competitive to gasoline is a combination of increasing crop yield and decreasing chemical usage in crop maintenance. Three options for ethanol conversion stage contributing to cost reduction are utilization of co-products, CO2 and manure, substituting rice husk for bunker oil, and setting new profit margin. One may expect that either a decrease in ethanol production cost or an increase in gasoline price would favor ethanol over gasoline. In fact, rising oil prices would make the production cost of ethanol increase accordingly, since ethanol is still a product of an oil-based economy. The gap could effectively get narrower or even eliminated with a decrease in the costs expended in producing ethanol. It is the case of a modest rate of fossil-based fuel/material inputs in CE production cycle brought about by appropriate farming practices and/or advanced ethanol conversion technologies. Finally yet importantly, a conventional cost estimate for bio-ethanol as done above would not inform the public adequately about the various benefits which are difficult to quantify in monetary terms. Briefly, they are (1) Reducing oil imports and saving foreign currency, (2) Reducing the burdens of foreign debt and debt servicing, (3) Lessening global warming impacts and reducing some criteria air pollutant emissions, (4) Enhancing technological development, (5) Stimulating domestic agricultural production and expanding the markets for domestic agricultural commodities, (6) Stabilizing farmers’ living conditions [16]. If all these benefits are included in a comprehensive LCC analysis, the cost per km driven may already be more favorable for cassava-based gasohol. 5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of 58 farmers in Nakhon Ratchasima province, the Cassava and Starch Technology Research Unit at Kasetsart University and other data providers.