How much Methane Comes from Sugar Cane Waste?
December 03, 2025
Louisiana鈥檚 sugar mills churn out 3 million tons of a byproduct called bagasse every year. The mills burn most of it for energy, but an estimated 10-30% rots in fields near the factories, taking valuable crop land out of production while emitting as much methane as a small-to-medium-sized landfill.
Mounds of bagasse, a waste product generated by processing sugar cane, pile up around a sugar mill.
鈥淥ur presentation at will make the case there are likely better options,鈥� said Anurag Mandalika, assistant research professor at the 蘑菇tv Center for Energy Studies.
Those include:
- Converting the bagasse to diesel, gasoline, or jet fuel. In July, an 蘑菇tv-led team of researchers鈥擬andalika is a member鈥攚on a $7 million National Science Foundation grant to develop the technology.
- Converting the bagasse to that can be burned to generate electricity at biomass power plants.
- Processing the bagasse to lock the carbon in, prior to storage for long-term carbon dioxide removal.
Mandalika does not know which option is best. Figuring out the best potential use would require a dedicated study focused on the technoeconomics and a life cycle analysis.
鈥淭he Center for Energy Studies doesn鈥檛 advocate for one solution over another,鈥� Mandalika said. 鈥淚t's not so simple. You would have to factor in the costs of any particular technology, its associated emissions, state and federal economic incentives, and a number of other variables. There would need to be a dedicated study to look at best potential use cases.鈥�
Mandalika鈥檚 work on bagasse and methane emissions was limited to six weeks of data, which was funded through a grant from Carboniferous, Inc. A longer-term study is needed to more accurately determine the amount of methane that bagasse emits. Bagasse that has been decomposing for a year generates far more methane than the bagasse just processed by a sugar mill.
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