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The largest resource liability for India lies in its inputs of Petroleum products. They are essential to maintain the tempo of the high growth rate of the Indian economy. India today consume about 111 million tonnes of petroleum products annually. Of this, only about 33 million tonnes is produced in the country as crude oil thereby implying that less than 30 per cent of the needs are met from domestic sources. The ratio is likely to further aggravated as the fuel needs would increase along a higher trajectory as the Indian economy is project to grow at about 8 per cent per annum. Import dependence is estimated to go up to 85 per cent by 2020. Conversely, even the worsening self sufficiency ratio for oil is not as bad as the availability of hydrocarbon is critical to maintaining high growth rate.
Looking for Alternative Fuels
The processing of crude oil gives us different petroleum products and the most significant of them in terms of consumption is the high-speed diesel (HSD) popularly described as diesel. Approximately 40 million tonnes HSD is consumed annually in India. This represents about 36 per cent of total consumption of all petroleum products. Thus, efforts to improve the self-sufficiency definitely call for initiatives to explore supplementary/ alternative sources of diesel. It is in this context that production of bio-diesel from edible and non-edible oil bearing seeds have attracted the attention of governments world over particularly in Europe and America. In India also, several initiatives are underway both at the level of the Government and the corporates particularly the oil PSUs under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoP&NG).
While in European Union, Unites States of America and some other countries bio-diesel programmes are primarily based on variety of edible oils, in R&D centres in India like Indian Oil R&D Centre at Faridabad have been experimenting with Jatropha Curcus and other known edible oil-seed based bio-diesel production. At present experiments in India are being made on blending bio-diesel with diesel to the extent of 5 per cent to establish efficacy in the different Indian climatic conditions. Under directions of MoP&NG, Petroleum Conservation and Research Association (PCRA) has opened a Bio-fuel Centre at its headquarters in Delhi and is working on building awareness for Jatropha Curcus cultivation and manufacture of bio-diesel. Oil PSUs, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) are experimenting with various mixes of bio-diesel with diesel in State Transport Buses in Haryana, Gujarat and Mumbai.
Trans-Esterification Technology
IOC (R&D) has examined and optimized the synthetic processes for the preparation of bio-diesel from various vegetable oils, which include oils from Rice bran, Jatropha curcas, Palm, Karanjia, Sunflower etc. The process has been scaled up to pilot plant level. The developed technology was transferred to M/s Venus Ethoxyethers, Goa on non-exclusive basis and on nominal technology fee and royalty sharing mechanism. IOC (R&D) has also set-up a quality control laboratory at IOC (R&D) Faridabad. All the quality control equipments have been installed, to check the quality of bio-diesel, as per ASTM / BIS specifications.
Jatropha Plantation
IOC has entered into a MoU with Indian Railways to study complete value chain of Biodiesel. In line with that, IOC has taken up plantation on 70 hectares of Railway land at Surendra Nagar in Gujarat. More than One lakh saplings of Jatropha have been planted at the site. This project is one of its kind in the country, where every aspect of Jatropha Biodiesel would be studied. How the wasteland could be used and transformed by undertaking bio-diesel production activities is very well reflected in the comparative pictures of pre and post-plantation sites. Efforts going into bringing about this change create enormous opportunities in supplementing the availability of hydrocarbons and in socio-economic benefits like creating fresh employment avenues, reducing green houses gases thus eco-friendly etc.
Trials With Indian Railways
The tests have been conducted with 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 20 per cent blends of Jatropha bio diesel in diesel on 16-cylinders Alco Diesel Locomotive Engine for power, specific fuel consumption, firing pressures and exhaust gas temperatures. Trial runs on Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi express trains have been carried out at 5 per cent and 10 per cent bio-diesel. It is further planned to launch B10 trials on five pairs of trains, namely Varuna Express, Ganga Gomti Express, Lucknow - Allahabad Jan Shatabdi, Neelanchal Express and Lucknow - Banaras intercity express.
Bio-Diesel Bus Service Introduced In GSRTC
The Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Mani Shankar Aiyer flagged-off bio-diesel bus service in Gandhinagar on March 12, 2005. The Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) introduced four bio-diesel-fuelled buses to ply between Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad.
Indian Oil, jointly with Tata motors launched a field trial run on 43 buses plied for their employees at Tata Motors in Pune. These buses would be run on 10 per cent bio-diesel-diesel blends. Mr. B.M.Bansal, Director, IOC (R&D) and Dr. V. Sumantaran, ED (PCBU&ERC) flagged off these buses on March 29, 2005. Parallely trials on Tata Indica cars and Tata LCVs have been launched at IOC R&D. Drivability and emissions are being monitored using different proportions of Biodiesel in diesel
Indian oil, jointly with Haryana Roadways launched field trials on 40 buses of Gurgaon depot in April 2004.Twenty buses are being run on 5 per cent biodiesel – diesel blends and their smoke, fuel efficiency and drivability is being compared with another set of twenty reference buses. A reduction of 10 – 15 per cent in smoke density has been observed by the use of Biodiesel. Encouraged by these results, the Haryana Roadways has requested IOC to extend trials on all the 180 buses of Gurgaon depot.
Here it is important to explain that bio-diesel is an agro-based diesel fuel substitute and can be made from both virgin or used vegetable oils (edible and non-edible) and also from animal fats as an alternative or as a part replacement of diesel. Bio-diesel offers several advantages for instance it can be used without major modifications in engines. Bio-diesel needs no separate infrastructure for storage and dispensing as the existing facilities could be used and handling bio-diesel is safer. In addition plantation of the plants like Jatropha would lead to gainful utilisation of wasteland, which is more than 100 million hectares in India and is conducive for growing these plants. On a national scale this programme will create employment opportunities on a large scale particularly in rural areas in the various activities along the chain such as growing plants, collection of oil-bearing seeds, extracting oil from the seeds through expeller units, process of trans-esterification for making bio-diesel for blending and use with conventional diesel. Bio-diesel is highly environment friendly owing to its properties to act as oxyginate which result in better combustion and lower emission.
The activities in the value chain of producing bio-diesel have different components. Beginning with large scale plantation of oil-bearing plants like Jatropha Curcus, Pongomia etc., the next stage involves collection of oil bearing seeds and extracting oil from the seeds in expeller units. Thereafter, the oil is put through Trans-esterification process in the specially put up plants for making bio-diesel from oil. This is followed by blending of bio-diesel in diesel for commercial use and transportation of bio-diesel blended diesel for distribution at retail outlets.
Considering the significant implication of producing bio-diesel, the Government has envisaged launching National Mission in bio-diesel and Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been prepared for obtaining ‘in principle’ approval of the Planning Commission. Petroleum Ministry has committed to the nodal ministry in this regard the Ministry of Rural Development that the oil marketing company will extend blending and marketing support for purchasing bio-diesel produced through national mission.
Panchayati Raj Institutions could come in handy hence the Panchayati Raj Ministry has conceptualized a role for them in creating awareness amongst people about Jatropha cultivation in residual areas, common land and farm hedges. They would identify Panchayats/Clusters of Panchayats for this programme, collaborate with National Oil Seed and Vegetable Oil Development Board, National Dairy Development Board and with PCRA, provide support through district level forest and agriculture officers.
Cultivation of Jatropha Curcus has been identified as a business activity to transform the rural economy like the green revolution in the past. This could be done in rural areas through the involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions. A joint committee of the Ministries of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Panchayati Raj has been set up to make recommendations on modalities of involving Panchayati Raj Institutions in growing Jatropha Plantations. The plants could be raised on community land as an additional crop without altering the prevailing cropping pattern in rural areas.
Jatropha Plantation at Surrendra Nagar on Railways Land (approx 6 months old plants)
IOC (R&D) Biodiesel Pilot Plant - Trans-Esterification Unit, Faridabad
*Information Officer, PIB, New Delhi
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