Junk Petrol for Ethanol
Arun Firodia

An energy crunch looms large. Fossil fuel stocks are falling. Oil
prices have broken the $70 barrier. Many countries are switching to
biofuels. The EU has decided to use 5.75% biofuels like ethanol for
motorcars by 2010. China plans to use 10% biofuels by 2010. The US
already produces about 10 million tones of ethanol. The
US is adding 30% to its capacity while China is setting up the
world's biggest plant. Interestingly, Hentry Ford, the father of
modern automobile, was an ardent advocate of ethanol as a fuel for
motorcars. He was a great believer in
recycling.
We have started with a 5% ethanol blend with petrol, which
can be increased to 10 & 20% progressively. Brazil is already
successfully using 50% blend! With new technology it may be possible
to use even 100% pure ethanol in car engines with some additives so
that sensitive parts of the engine are not affected.
Ethanol is anhydrous, the purest form of alcohol. It is
available as a byproduct in sugar factories. One tonne of sugarcane
produces 100 kg of sugar (worth Rs 1,000) and 50 kg of ethanol
(worth Rs 900). But the entire one tonne of sugarcane, if fed
directly into a distillery, can produce 500 kg of ethanol (worth Rs
9,000). It, therefore, makes good commercial sense of produce
ethanol as a main product in an independent distillery, rather than
as a byproduct in sugar factory. Such distilleries can easily pay
double the price of a sugar factory to a farmer.
But sugarcane is an irrigated, water-intensive crop. What
about a dryland farmer who depends on rainfed crops? Fortunately,
new technology is available to produce ethanol from grain and stem
juice of crops like sweet sorghum (meethijowar), barley and maize,
which are starchy. A distillery can extract 380 liters of ethanol
(worth Rs. 6,880) from one tonne of such crops. The distillery would
be willing a pay double the prices to a dryland farmer compared to
what he gets for his crops today. In this way, ethanol can usher in
rural prosperity.
Our petrol consumption last year was eight million tones. We
need only four lakh tones of ethanol to get a 5% blend. This can be
easily produced from eight lakh tones of sugarcane, or just 0.3% of
our total sugarcane production. This blend can also be produced from
just 5% of total jowar and maize production (21 mmt) if fed directly
to the distilleries. To cope with rising demand in future, we should
turn to biotechnology to enhance crop yields. This is indeed
possible, as demonstrated by a farmer in Maharashtra who has
achieved sugarcane output of a record 355 tonnes/hectare through
modern farming techniques, as against the present 60-70
tonnes/hectare. The distillery can also produce lower
grades of industrial or methyl alcohol (denatured spirit) and sell
at Rs. 6-10 per liter. Industrial alcohol blended with kerosene (50%
or even higher) can provide all the energy required in rural India.
It can fire cooking stoves, light up lamps, drive water pumps,
motorcycles or auto rickshaws and run cold storage units working on
the absorption cycle. It will also save rural womenfolk the hardship
of walking long distances to collect firewood and in the process
save trees.
The price of ethanol and industrial alcohol will fall
substantially if the government exempts them from excise duty and
sales tax. That would encourage their large-scale production and
use. Oil companies could buy them from distilleries, blend them with
petrol and kerosene and market such blends through roadside petrol
and kerosene pumps. The kerosene pump is a novel idea whose time has
come. Kerosene need not be subsidized or rationed any more. Just
blend it (50% or more) with industrial alcohol and sell it
freely.
When crude oil was available at $20 per barrel, nobody
bothered about biofuels. But now biofuels like ethanol are emerging
as imperatives. To promote their use, the government must declare a
comprehensive biofuel policy. In doing so, it should correct
certain tax anomalies. While sugar comes under central excise,
alcohol comes under state excise. Rationalization of such rules,
exemption from excise duty and sales tax, deregulation of feedstock
and its pricing, simplification of licensing and other procedures
will make our ethanol industry strong and vibrant. We could then
benchmark ourselves with Brazil in production and pricing of
ethanol. Brazil produces ethanol at half the price of US or Europe.
Brazil has also developed techniques to treat the effluent called
spent wash that is generated in a sugar factory or in a distillery.
We need to learn and adopt these techniques or develop our own.
The day may not be far when the world starts importing ethanol from
India, just as it imports crude oil from the Middle East.
The Times of India (New Delhi), 15 Sep. 2005

http://www.frienvis.nic.in/NewDigest/Sep.htm