Comparative Study And Optimization On Industrial Symbiosis Of The Colombia's Sugar Industry

Colombia is the world's 15 th largest sugar producing country,sugar industry accounts for 3% of industrial output,but also contributes to 1.5% of the wastewater discharge.Industrial symbiosis can bring new opportunities for the ecology of the sugar industry,for this reason this paper analyzes and optimizes the industrial symbiosis model of the sugar industry in Colombia concerning the Chinese sugar industry.The main work of this study and results include:After analyzing Colombia and China industrial symbiosis was found that the Colombian sugar industry can extend its industry chain and develop new by-products such as biogas,cement and animal feed.With the purpose to know which of these three by-products will bring a better performance in terms of environment,economic and social benefits in the sugar mills,was made an analysis with interviews and statistic data through the sugar associations and sugar mills in Colombia,finding that there is special interest in biogas production and the sugar mills are looking to implement this technology in the future.For this reason,through the use of cost-benefit analysis(CBA),this paper evaluates if the biogas technology in Colombia can improve the economic benefits of sugar mills,including net present value(NPV),internal rate of return(IRR)and sensitivity analysis.The results demonstrated that even though the investment on this technology is high,after the year 9th the sugar mills will start earning a good profit and with an IRR of 12% the sugar mills have good opportunities to invest and achieve higher economic returns.Additionally,was also calculated the sensitivity analysis with different scenarios such as the initial investment cost,the price of biogas,electricity,and cost of labour.This result proves that the changes of different factors will not affect significantly the project and it also indicates that the biogas technology has no risk and can be implemented and promoted in the Colombian sugar mills.In addition,this paper analyzes Chinese policies and the government support regarding the production of biogas and how these policies could be implemented in Colombia.