The 1st generation ethanol produced from sweet sorghum presents an high environmental, economic and energetic sustainability: the ascribed GHGs saving is 70-71%, the technical simplicity of the processing and the exploitation of by-products guarantee the economic viability also for decentralised small-medium plants (max 15,000 t/y) and its energy ratio is 1.7-7.3.

In the current situation the EU ethanol market is controlled by big industrial groups and large agricultural cooperatives of the sugar and alcohol industries and mainly cereals are processed in big plants (100,000-200,000t/y). This situation is due to some relevant barriers: economic, logistical, ecological, environmental, social and dissemination barrier.

The project will contribute to change the current situation concerning the raw material diversification, decentralisation and sustainability of 1st generation ethanol processing from sweet sorghum, which can be grown in the southern regions of the EU.

At the moment the ethanol chain is not taken in account because of the absence of know-how about its potentialities.