Bio – Fuels

The popularity and usage of Bio-Fuels is on the rise in the rural India. With rapid industrialization of India, there has been a huge shortage of fossil fuels in India and there has been a cry for an alternative and cheap energy source. The use of solar energy as alternative fuel source is not feasible since, it involves a substantial amount of capital investment for its infrastructural set-up. Further, the village economy of India is not equipped both financially and technologically to absorb the solar-energy technology. The concept and use of Bio-Fuels is much more suitable and acceptable on the economic and technology parameters of rural India economy. The role of Bio-Fuels in India, in the context of India's energy need and India village economy, is of extreme importance.

The energy needs of India are growing at an annual rate of 4.8% and this demand is met by fossil fuel alone. The domestic energy production capacity of India fulfills around 25% to 30% of India's energy requirements and rest is imported from international sources. Further, with the ever rising international crude oil price, the pressure on the India's GDP is on a rise since, India spends amount equivalent to 10% of its GDP to source oil and natural gases from international markets. In this context, the use of Bio-Fuels is regarded as the best solution for alternative and cheap fuel source. Furthermore, India being an agriculture-based country the cultivation or reuse of biodegradable matter for manufacture of Bio-Fuels is not a constraint on the rural economy. The generation or manufacture of Bio-Fuels in India is totally rural based, since it requires large quantum of biodegradable vegetable and plant matter, which is abundantly available here. The Government of India has devised a National Biodiesel Mission to meet twenty percent of India’s diesel requirements by the end of the financial year 2011-2012. Jatropha Curcas oilseeds are used as biodiesel feedstock.

The National Biodiesel Mission will be implemented in two stages:-

• A project carried out between the period 2003-2007, which cultivated around 400,000 hectares of rural land and yielded around 3.75 tons oilseed per hectare annually. This fetched an annual biodiesel production of 1.2 ton / ha / year for a total of 480,000 tons per annum.
  
• A commercialization period from 2007-2012 will continue Jatropha cultivation and install more such trans-esterification plants across India

The main positive features of the use of Bio-Fuels in India are as follows -

• Generation of employment - The first phase of the National Biodiesel Mission of India generated around 127.6 million person days of work during plantation process, 36.8 million person days of work during collection process of seeds and other allied works.
  
  
• Large part of rural population of India now has access to basic energy services. This has helped in the reduction of poverty by initiating the following -
  • Easy and better access to drinking water
  • Curtailed time spent on gathering woods, drinking water, cooking etc
  • Lighting for use during night time, especially for education
  • Reduced indoor pollution and deforestation rate
• Increase in soil nutrients and decreased soil erosion and land degradation
• Energy security and lesser dependence on import of fossil fuel
• Reduced emission of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, unburnt hydrocarbons, particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrated.
• Bio-fuels does not contains sulfur, which is another harmful residual pollutant of fossil fuel
• Reduced emission of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and thus less global warming
• For every ton of petrol or diesel burnt, it produces around three tons of more carbon monoxide than one ton of burnt ethanol or biodiesel
• The octane number of ethanol is 120, much higher than that of petrol

(Last Updated on 19 May 2011)