The potential of electricity generation from the major agricultural wastes in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

Agricultural activities produce a large quantity of waste each year in the Mekong Delta. For example, appropriately 26.86 million tons of rice straw, 5.37 million tons of rice husks, 1.33 million tons of bagasse and 0.59 million tons of corn straw were produced in 2016. Despite such a huge quantity of agricultural waste, the waste has been rarely used effectively. Around 54.1 - 98.0% of rice straw is normally burnt on the field; only 20 - 50% of rice husk is used for pellet or energy purposes; a few sugar-cane factories apply bagasse feeding to steam cookers, and a small quantity of corn straw is used as livestock feeding. If this biomass source is used for electricity generation, in theory, for the period of 2006 - 2020, it is estimated that this source can potentially generate 1203 million MWh/year from rice straw, 236 million MWh/year from rice husk, 45 million MWh/year from bagasse, and 40 million MWh/year from corn straw. Electricity generation of biomass source will not only solve the problem of environmental pollution caused by agricultural waste but also meet increasing energy demands for socio-economic development in this region.