India’s Ethanol Blending Policy Faces Delays

India’s plan to expand ethanol blending in petrol beyond the current 19% (E19) to 27–100% is facing significant supply-side, demand-side, and geopolitical headwinds, slowing the rollout of the new ethanol policy.

What is Ethanol?

It is obtained by feeding various raw materials or agricultural products through fermentation, and ethanol is used as a fuel. Ethanol is renewable fuel as it can be used in the pepping of gasoline, or it can work as an octane enhancer. This is also called grain alcohol, ethyl alcohol, or simply EtOH.

These are some applications of ethanol in agriculture:

• Fuel-Ethanol
  • This is a high-octane fuel, which could be used for automobiles. Having lower evaporative emissions, it is less flammable compared with gasoline.
• Economic development
  • Ethanol production is turning into an economic engine in India creating value from such agricultural commodities as corn and sugar beets.
• Feedstock
  • Under various feedstocks such as corn, sorghum, barley, sugar cane, sugar beets, crop residues, wood, and grasses, various feedstocks produce ethanol.
• Byproducts
  • Some byproducts include corn oil, protein feeds, and distillers dried grains (DDG). These are produced from processes of ethanol production. The last one is treated as part of animal feed.

Role of Ethanol in India

• Powers vehicles, aids the spirits industry, and cuts India’s imports of crude oil.
• Harmful emissions are reduced, air quality is improved, and ₹1.1 trillion has been saved in foreign exchange because of ethanol blending.
• In the last decade, from savings of 50 million carbon dioxide equivalent in a year, the increase in ethanol use has consistently been ahead of this target.
• New trade avenues to farmers would create a more even marketplace for their crops such as sugarcane.

The Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme

The Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme is a government initiative to increase the amount of ethanol blended with petrol in India: 

• Goals:
  • Blending 10% ethanol with petrol by 2021-22 
  • Blending 20% ethanol with petrol by 2025 

What is Ethanol blending?

• It is the process of mixing ethanol with gasoline to reduce the use of fossil fuels.