Sweet Sustainability: Exploring efficient and innovative solutions for the beet sugar industry
Tanner Ring, Process Engineer | EAPC Industrial Services
When I began my career in sugar in 2016, I didn’t think it would lead me to conversations about renewable energy, biogas, or the possibility of a carbon-free factory floor. Fast forward nine years, and that’s exactly where it has taken me.
Before joining EAPC’s Industrial Services team, I spent six years as a Factory Engineer at American Crystal Sugar Company (ACS) in Drayton, North Dakota. During that time, I was part of a major long-term plant expansion that aimed to more than double the plant’s processing capacity. The expansion aimed to increase the beet slice rate from 6,750 tons per day to 15,000 tons per day and is still ongoing. It was a challenging and immersive experience. I had the opportunity to work hands-on with nearly every station inside the factory, from juice heaters and evaporators to purification systems and pulp dryers. Throughout this experience, I learned that every pipe, every condenser, and every bit of waste heat mattered. Efficiency wasn’t just about numbers and improvement; it was about resilience and longevity.
Now, with EAPC, I bring my practical, real-world experience into my work as a process engineer. Partnering with clients across various regions and industries, EAPC’s multidisciplinary team designs systems that are not only efficient, but sustainable and adaptable in an ever-evolving energy landscape.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to present at the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists (ASSBT) conference in Long Beach, CA. The focus of my presentation was the answer this question: How do we ensure the long-term sustainability and relevance of beet sugar production in the United States? My conclusion, as I laid out in the session, lies in looking at sustainability from three distinct perspectives—traditional, modern, and future-forward (Request the full presentation here).
For a behind-the-scenes look at our insights and experience at the ASSBT Conference, check out our Vlog recap on YouTube.
A Shifting Landscape
As legislation and energy markets evolve domestically and globally, businesses in every sector must adapt. This adaptation is not just to meet emerging environmental goals, but to remain financially competitive in markets that continue towards globalization. While the United States has yet to implement a federal carbon pricing system, individual states have begun implementing various programs. 48 states and the District of Columbia have developed Climate Action Plans, nearly half of U.S. states have established greenhouse gas reduction targets, and a handful of states have individual and collective carbon pricing initiatives and low-carbon fuel standards.
That means industrial sectors, beet sugar included, need to be prepared for a future in which carbon accountability is standard. While we can learn from policy shifts here at home, it’s important to consider the established carbon pricing systems in regions like the European Union and Canada. These systems have significantly influenced energy use in their respective regions, created new revenue streams through renewable production, and introduced market-based incentives that are already reshaping global supply chains and return on investment calculations.
Traditional: Foundation of Efficiency
Historically, sustainability in sugar production has been rooted in improving process fundamentals. For example, adding boiler economizers to reclaim waste energy from flue gas and using it to preheat feedwater reduces fuel usage. For most processes, this can lower fuel consumption by up to 10% and has a payback of as little as two years. Even relatively small efforts like replacing pressure-reducing valve stations with small extraction steam turbines are an effective strategy to improve energy efficiency. All sugar factories can benefit by vapor shifting to utilize lower pressure steam for process heating needs, along with implementing a cascading condensate recovery system. These investments may not generate headlines, but they yield consistent operational value and resilience, often with no need for tax incentives or complex integration.
These types of traditional projects (e.g., streamlining steam and electricity demands, optimizing evaporator and crystallizer systems, or improving process control, etc.) represent low-hanging fruit that can reliably increase a plant’s energy profile quickly and affordably.
Modern: Capturing New Value
The next layer of sustainability focuses on modern tools and methods, ones that take advantage of new technology and methods to create alternate revenue streams. EAPC has partnered with facilities to assess combined heat and power (CHP) systems and explore how biogas recovery from byproducts and wastewater treatment can not only offset natural gas use but, in some cases, be upgraded and sold into markets like Canada where significant green energy incentives are available.
Utilizing digital and traditional process modeling, EAPC can plan and evaluate the effectiveness of new or revised systems before capital is committed. For sugar producers, this might be exploring how turbine-generators support local grid stability or how waste-derived energy sources can reduce exposure to volatile or intermittent energy availability and pricing.
As the price of renewable energy continues to drop and customer demand for low-carbon products increases, these strategies serve as both an environmental and an economic hedge.
Future-Forward: Engineering for What’s Next
The third, and perhaps most critical, perspective is about future-proofing. How does the U.S. beet sugar industry remain viable in a world that significantly curtails or outright bans fossil fuels? While that may sound like a long way off, energy market trends suggest it’s closer than many think.
That’s why EAPC helps its clients explore electrified process alternatives, carbon-free processing technologies, and even early-stage innovations like lime-free purification systems and modular micro nuclear reactors.
One compelling concept to consider is using beet pulp as a primary fuel source. This isn’t as profitable as selling the pulp for livestock feed like we do today, but in a low or zero-carbon world, it becomes an economically viable path forward and is a tried-and-true method used by the cane sugar industry with their byproduct, bagasse.
EnerDry AS (2021) The Technology of the Pressurized Steam Dryer in Beet Sugar Factories (2024)
Other ideas include generating carbon-neutral electricity on-site via solar, wind, or geothermal, or implementing fully electrified factories powered by localized renewable grids. These forward-looking approaches will be crucial for the sugar industry to create production models that are economically viable and technically feasible in a carbon-constrained future.
A Global Shift, Not a Trend
The effort for sustainability is not about reacting to policy; it’s about responding to economics. The transition to sustainable and renewable power is a global trend driven by market and consumer forces. Even in regions without carbon penalties or tax incentives, the economics of energy are changing. Renewable technologies are rapidly becoming competitive, if not the least-cost option in many markets, and customers increasingly want products with low and/or transparent carbon footprints.
All industrial entities, sugar included, must evolve accordingly. That means understanding how to integrate new technologies into the factory, anticipate future market pressures, implement circular production processes, and align facility design with long-term cost and risk reduction.
Three Paths to Progress
In summary, the path for sustainability in the U.S. beet sugar industry can be grouped into three categories:
- Traditional Efficiency: Proven upgrades that reduce energy use and operating costs today (e.g., boiler economizers, turbine generators, vapor shifting, and process optimization).
- Modern Sustainability: Technology-enabled systems that support process flexibility and create new value (e.g., CHP, biogas recovery, and digital or AI-assisted plant modeling).
- Future-Forward Innovation: Solutions for a post-fossil-fuel world (e.g., electrified systems, renewable microgrids, biomass utilization as fuel, and modular nuclear plants).
Each strategy alone has value, but together, they form a roadmap for an industry ready to compete and thrive in a market that is rapidly shifting towards globalization and sustainable energy.
Sustainability, in my experience, is not just about doing the right thing when it’s obvious or convenient. It’s about understanding and preparing for what’s next, which will likely be opaque and disruptive… and that is where the work really gets interesting.
We don’t just talk about energy transitions at EAPC. As a team with our clients, we study, design, engineer, and implement them for the betterment of the communities they serve.
