20% Ethanol Blending in Petrol by 2025

 In News

• The Union Cabinet through an amendment in National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 has advanced the date by which fuel companies have to increase the percentage of ethanol in petrol to 20%, from 2030 to 2025.
  • Earlier the target was to achieve 10 percent blending in petrol by 2022 and 10 percent in diesel by 2030.

Advantages of the Move

• Saving of precious forex reserves: NITI Aayog in its 2021 report said that immense benefits would accrue to the country by 20% ethanol blending by 2025 as it can save ?30,000 crore of foreign exchange per year,
• Increased energy security: India imports more than 70 percent of its domestic crude requirement from abroad. The move will reduce its dependency on foreign crude significantly.
  • India will be more immune to geopolitics upheavals as seen recently in Russia-Ukraine conflict or middle-east turmoil.
• Eco-friendly: Use of blended ethanol lowers carbon emissions, resulting in better air quality.
• Judicious use of otherwise wasted crops: Huge quantity of crops see wastage in India every year. With the above amendment, the wasted crops would be diverted for ethanol production thus reducing wastage.
• Increased farmer income: Farmers will be able to realise better prices for their produce. The current policy of attaining 10 percent blending level has benefited the farmers significantly. The 20 percent level will further it.
• Increased self-reliance: New policy would allow more feedstock for producing biofuel and foster the development of indigenous technologies making India self-reliant to a considerable degree.

Disadvantages of the move

• Increase in vehicle price levels:
  • The 10% target of blending did not require major changes to engines. However, a 20% blend would require changes driving up the prices of vehicles thereby hurting the customers and affecting the automobile sector which is still recovering from the pandemic.
• Land diverted for non-food purposes:
  • A greater percentage of blending would result in more land being diverted for crops that would be used for ethanol production threatening food security.
• Unsustainable crop rearing:
  • As of now, primarily water-intensive sugar cane is being used in ethanol production which is driving down the water table swiftly. It is also being subsidised by the government thus nudging more farmers to grow the crop.
  • The target would require 6 million tonnes of sugarcane and 16.5 million tonnes of grains per annum by 2025 for non-food purposes thus impacting food security.
• Technology sub-optimal to other green technology:
  • India should focus more on technologies that are sustainable in nature like EV vehicles and solar energy driven mass transport systems. 
  • This will save the precious R&D of the automobile sectors also who are focusing more on deployment of EV.

How to meet the target of 20 percent?

• Projection: The NITI Aayog projects an ethanol demand of 10.16 billion liters by 2025 based on the adoption of technology by vehicles.
• Current scenario: The current ethanol production capacity in India is 4.26 billion liters which is primarily derived from molasses-based distilleries, another 2.58 billion liters come from grain-based distilleries.
• Projection: Ethanol production based on molasses-based distilleries will have to expand to 7.6 billion liters while production based on grain distilleries will have to expand to 7.4 billion liters to meet the target of 20 percent blending.

Source: TH