Evaluation of bioethanol production on agricultural products in Turkey

Perspective on energy resources today; it is changing day by day due to reasons such as the rapid increase in the world population, the changes in raw material costs, the unstoppable increase in global energy demand and in connection with these decrease in the limited fossil resource reserves. In recent years, for the reasons of increasing global warming, climate change, amount of greenhouse gases, environmental disasters etc. the world's life is rapidly running out. With the reaching of threatining dimensions of these effects, renewable energy sources which can be substituted for fosil fuels, help to reduce the negative effects of global warming and have the ability to retrain high heat retention, in other words, "environmentally friendly" fuels have entered the world's agenda. Since biofuels usually obtained from domestic raw materials owned by countries, there has been no need for any external raw material supply. The most preferred raw materials in the world in bioethanol production are corn, sugar cane, sugar beet and wheat. In Turkey, sugar beet, wheat and corn have used as raw materials in establishments that have bioethanol production permits. In this study, the production, consumption and foreign trade data of the mentioned agricultural products both in the world and in Turkey were examined and in the light of the findings obtained, the effects of their use as raw materials on the agricultural sector were evaluated. In addition to this, the production costs of bioethanol from sugar beet, wheat and corn in Turkey were calculated by considering both current and past years' product prices and costs. As a result of the calculations, bioethanol production costs according to raw material costs in 2022; it was calculated as 2,65 TL/lt for sugar beet, 3,26 TL/lt for corn and 5,10 TL/lt for wheat. In the cost calculations of previous years, the current prices were converted to real prices by applying the deflator. Also in the study, bioethanol policies and legislation were included, alternative and sustainable bioenergy options were presented for Turkey, and solutions were suggested for the present and future of agricultural policies.