Public

SUGAR

AGRICULTURE, CANE DISEASES

COMPUTER SYSTEMS

BOILER STATION

ASSCT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, MILLING STATION

Some 15 years ago, it became apparent that travelling grate and water-cooled pinhole grate stokers were no longer able to cope with the increasing demands of the biomass burning industry. These demands included lower excess air firing for efficiency and emission control, higher boiler capacities, and greater availability to the plant. These demands were met in part by the air-cooled vibrating grate stoker and, more importantly, by the newly developed water-cooled automatic ash discharge grate, which gives high efficiency filing at lowest possible emission rates, and prolonged operation without shutdown for maintenance and/or grate cleaning. The demands of the sugar industry are growing in this direction and vibrating grate stokers are well suited to answer the challenge for highly reliable firing of bagasse, woodwaste and coal in the new evolution of co-generating power plants_

THE outbreak of orange rust in the central district of Queensland in 2000 caused much turmoil in the sugar industry due to low yields in susceptible commercial crops and the high percentage of the crop planted to a susceptible variety. Plant breeding trials offer a way to assess the impact of endemic diseases on yield, and results from analyses conducted using central Queensland trial data from 1999- 2001 highlight the effect the disease can have on sugarcane yield. Orange rust reduced yield substantially (tonnes of cane and tonnes of sugar per ha) in harvests from 1999-2001. The losses were as high as 38% in tonnes of cane in 2000 harvests in highly susceptible varieties. The analyses suggest the disease was present in Mackay previous to when it was first recognised in January 2000. The disease may significantly reduce sugarcane yields and there remains a need to ensure commercial varieties contain adequate disease resistance.

Quicklime, Slaking, Batch Slaking, Slaking Temperature, Water Ratio, Milk of Lime, Calcium Hydroxide.

Telemetry; Consignment; Ticket Number; Electronic Tablets

Innovation; Sugar Milling; Sugar Processing; Workshops; Training; Education

CONDENSERS

SOIL CONSERVATION

DIFFUSION

BOILER STATION

ASSCT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

For sugar factories undertaking large scale cogeneration of electricity, substantial reductions in the consumption of low pressure (process) steam in the raw sugar process stations will be sought in order to increase the revenue from export power. Ultimately, the extent to which the process steam consumption is reduced will be determined by the economic return obtained from the increased power generation, balanced against the capital expenditure required to modify the process section of the factory to effect the reductions in process steam consumption. This paper describes the procedures and software which have been developed to estimate relatively quickly the low pressure steam consumption for nominated process configurations for juice heating, juice evaporation and pan stage operations. Through successive applications of the softwarc, suitable practical plant configurations for minimising low-pressure steam consumption can be ei.tablished. The most promising options can then be analysed in greater detail.

AT THE TIME of the orange rust (Puccinia kuehnii) disease epidemic in 2000, there was evidence of a relationship between location and disease incidence and severity in the highly susceptible variety Q124. To understand the factors governing disease occurrence, laboratory research was undertaken. This provided information on temperature and relative humidity requirements for orange rust spore germination. Subsequently, weather stations were placed within sugarcane crops in the Mackay district of central Queensland and meteorological conditions recorded within the crop on a frequent basis. Results were analysed in accordance with the laboratory findings. This paper reviews the experience gained over several seasons and the extension strategies used to deliver information to industry. Use of this knowledge may help to improve our understanding of disease incidence in the Australian sugar industry, not only with orange rust but also with other leaf pathogens.

Cane Payment, Shared Revenue, Percent Recoverable Sugar, NIR, Business Drivers, Value Chain.

Consignment; Ticket Number; RFID; Full Yard; Tip Queue

Cogeneration, Control, Boiler, Calorific Value

CLARIFIER STATION, EVAPORATOR STATION, MAINTENANCE, PAN STATION

SOIL CONSERVATION

DIFFUSION

BAGASSE, BOILER STATION

ASSCT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, MILLING STATION

This paper the equipments and requirements of a new modern cogeneration power plant and/or when converting an existing seasonal bagasse-fired cogeneration plant to all-year-round power production and export in an established sugar mill. For the purpose of th is paper, we will use the Rocky Point Sugar Mill Cogeneration Project as the background of the presentation. Previously, the power cycles used in most sugar mills used relatively low-pressure steam and did not produce high overall efficiencies. Now that the export of power is an important criterion, it is necessary that the overall efficiencies be increased by up to 25% over those units designed for bagasse incineration. The Roch Point Sugar Mill Cogeneration Project has been designed to meet this challenge.

COMPETITIVENESS of the Australian sugar industry against declining terms of trade in the global market is an increasing issue for the industry. While advances have been made in individual sectors, future innovation is likely to be based on optimising the farming, harvesting, transport and milling value chain as a whole. Several mill regions are exploring opportunities to reduce the cost of harvesting and cane transport for the local industry. This required the development of a model, called the Harvest Haul Model, to quantify the performance of the harvesting sector on a regional scale. This model is integrated with other component models to provide a whole-of-system modelling capability to assess the regional impacts to the harvesting and growing sector from big picture changes in harvesting, such as the reduced number of groups. The Harvest Haul Model is a database application that estimates the cost of harvesting each paddock of sugarcane on a farm, in a harvesting group, or across a sugar milling region. The initial purpose for the Harvest Haul Model was to quantify the overall gains to a region by changing from standard harvesting practice to Harvest Best Practice (HBP) methods. HBP encourages harvesters to reduce fan speed and elevator pour rate, which reduces cane loss. The model was also developed to conduct scenario analyses looking at the effects on: harvesting and hauling of changing harvesting hours; harvesting group numbers, content and size; and also changing cane railway siding locations, which change haul-out distances. As gathering region-wide data is an enormous task, GIS methods were used to calculate estimates for row length and haul-out distance for each block of cane in the region. Surveys were conducted to estimate the type and value of capital equipment used in the region and some assumptions were made from previous research. Results of scenario analyses have shown that, while the region gains from the uptake of harvesting best practice, the harvesting sector returns decrease, emphasising a need to develop a more equitable payment method. The Harvest Haul Model was applied to the Mourilyan sugar mill region for quantifying the effect of introducing HBP and reducing the number of harvesting groups.

Automatic, Bin Uncoupling, Safety.