Roadmap for Feedstock Security to Achieve the Target of 20% Ethanol Blending in Petrol by 2025

India uses by-products (molasses) from sugar production to produce ethanol. Increasing reliance on biofuels can push farmers towards growing more water intensive crops like sugarcane and rice which currently use 70% of the available irrigation water. Selling food grains for fuel will be beneficial for corporates and farmers on one hand but on another hand it will lead to price hike of food grains in the market and may create an imbalance of food grains availability at a reasonable market price.

December 20, 2022. By News Bureau

India is one of the fastest growing energy consumer and set to be the most populous nation by 2027. Nearly 85 percent of India’s crude oil import, making it highly dependent on imports from major crude oil producing nations. Oil demand grew 8.2% over a year earlier to 5.15 million barrels per day in 2022 (IEA 2021). While the world’s economies are struggling with the dreadful consequences of climate change and scarcity of crude oils and shifting their stake to enhance the low carbon fuels and renewable sources, the Indian government also announced to blend 20% ethanol in petrol out of which country has recently achieved 10% blending of ethanol in petrol in June 2022.

Now India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway and setting a tone to a new energy regime led by renewable sources concerning climate change. Ethanol produced by fermentation routes from sugar and starchbased feedstocks (1st generation feedstocks) in major sources for this 1G ethanol production, food grains crops are being used on a large scale as feedstocks.

Commercial biofuels are made from agricultural commodities such as sugarcane, cassava, corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and oil seeds. In advancing the target of 20% national ethanol blending by 5 years, 2025, the roadmap largely abandons a focus on second generation biofuels and relies on huge and reliable supplies of feedstocks. Thus it is pertinent to deliberate the assured supply of feedstock and easy to achieve this target timely.
 

Challenges for feedstock availability:
India uses by-products (molasses) from sugar production to produce ethanol. Increasing reliance on biofuels can push farmers towards growing more water intensive crops like sugarcane and rice which currently use 70% of the available irrigation water. Selling food grains for fuel will be beneficial for corporates and farmers on one hand but on another hand it will lead to price hike of food grains in the market and may create an imbalance of food grains availability at a reasonable market price. Use of edible grains to produce ethanol in a country where hunger is rampant is unethical. The move could impact India’s hunger situation by limiting access to food security programs. The use of competing agricultural feedstocks can create conflict between different agricultural lobbies. Food prices may hike due to diversion of mass consumption grains. The production of ethanol from sound quality grains deprives humans and livestock of food. Incentives for sugarcane- and maize-based production will be difficult to repeal once implemented, given the strength of agricultural lobbies in most states.
 

Government priorities to promote ethanol production
The GoI has announced a scaling up of its ethanol blending ambitions, to enable faster transition and focus on allowing food gains in addition to sugar-based production, which includes maize as well as surplus rice from Food Corporation of India (FCI) stocks. The loan interest subvention scheme has also been expanded, to include grain-based distilleries apart from sugar or molasses-based distilleries. The recently constituted “Expert Committee on Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India by 2025,” has outlined a reconfigured approach to meeting the new targets that requires 13.5 billion litres of ethanol to be produced by 2025 a six fold increase from the 2.7 billion litres produced in 2021. The plan is to obtain 6.8 billion litres from sugarcane and 6.6 billion litres from food grains, which will have a significant impact on the agriculture sector.

With an aim to cut pollution caused by stubble burning in Haryana, Delhi region, a new 2nd generation (2G) ethanol plant was recently (August 10, World Biofuel Day-2022) dedicated to the nation by Indian Oil Corporation Limited. Similarly Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) require technical, economic, and research strategies with a clear focus on 2G feedstocks and land regeneration, despite this, the current administration has redoubled its focus on food-grain-based feedstocks to meet its biofuel blending targets.

This year, the government allocated 78,000 tonnes of FCI rice for ethanol production, equivalent to roughly 0.4% of 2025 ethanol demand. Although sugar has the highest water consumption per acre, it still remains the most lucrative food crop for ethanol. Amongst grains, maize is the least water-intensive crop that can be used for ethanol production, although the rate of conversion to ethanol is lower than for rice and broken rice. The production of ethanol from maize and such other low water consuming feedstocks may be encouraged. These efforts will not only reduce emissions but also provide a multitude of economic and environmental benefits as well.

- D. K Ojha, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas
- Arun Kumar, Agricultural Economist and Consultant, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas
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