http://www.indiaserver.com:80/thehindu/2000/10/31/stories/0631000c.htm
Tuesday, October 31, 2000 An alternative to petroleum By Prem Shankar Jha Successive Indian governments have been toying with the idea of finding a substitute fuel for crude oil for so long that one is tempted to take the announcement by the Union Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Mr. Shanta Kumar, that he plans to set up a pilot project to study the economics and logistics of switching a sizable part of the nation's transport fleet from gasoline and diesel to ethanol, with a pinch of salt. There is, of course, nothing new about the scheme. That ethanol is a superior transport fuel to gasoline has been known for a long time. Since unlike gasoline, the ethanol molecule contains oxygen, it burns completely and cleanly. This not only increases the efficiency of combustion by up to 40 per cent, but also yields only steam and carbon-dioxide as the exhaust. Best of all, up to 30 per cent of ethanol can be mixed with gasoline without having to change the engine settings at all. Even a hundred per cent ethanol car needs only a minor adjustment of the carburettor or the fuel injection system. Brazil went in for an ambitious programme to switch from the use of gasoline to ethanol in cars as far back as 1975. Had oil prices not crashed in 1985, it might have completed the shift long ago. Had earlier governments been sufficiently serious, India too could have switched at least partly to ethanol, or its close chemical cousin methanol many years ago. Instead, all they did was tinker with the idea while sinking untold thousands of crores, largely fruitlessly, into a search for new oil fields. The failure was all the more difficult to understand because, unlike the highly industrialised countries where oil is used not only for transport but also for industry and home heating, transport fuel accounts for not a quarter but fully two-thirds of the total demand for oil. The need to find a substitute in order to shield the country from the vagaries of oil pricing was therefore correspondingly greater. The reason for its abject failure to even study the option seriously is the way the Indian Government is constructed. From the beginning, the search for new energy sources was relegated to a small and insignificant appendage of the Ministry of Energy, Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources, whose plan budget was counted in crores while that of the departments dealing with coal and hydro-power, and the Ministry of Petroleum, was counted in tens of thousands of crores. Not surprisingly, no exploration of new energy source ever got beyond the pilot project stage. That could easily be the fate of Mr. Kumar's initiative too, except for one small difference. Mr. Kumar plans to rope in the Minister for Petroleum, Mr. Ram Naik, into the exercise. That would break the seal between the DNES and major ministries and bring any potential new energy source squarely to the centre of the stage. This is all the more likely because Mr. Naik has already shown that he is not inclined to ignore novel ideas and hard decisions. If only this could be done, the potential for meeting India's future transport fuel needs from various agro-residues is virtually limitless. But to explore these Mr. Kumar needs not only a pilot project to work out the economics of distribution, but one to workout the economics of production. The cheapest raw material for making ethanol is molasses. But unlike Brazil, which has an abundance of land and can afford to grow sugarcane solely to produce ethanol, India has a dearth of arable land, and molasses production is tied to the demand for sugar. Thus, not only is the ethanol available from this source totally insufficient to meet the needs of the transport industry, but it is also in great demand from the alcohol distilleries and the chemicals industry, both of which can afford to pay a great deal more. India must therefore produce ethanol by fermenting other crop residues that do not have alternative high-value uses. As every bootlegger who has run an illicit still knows, the main hurdle is not technology but cost. In the Seventies it had been calculated that ethanol would not become economic till the price of crude oil had reached $22 or 23 a barrel. Today the break-even point will be a good deal higher - probably not far below the present cost of $30 to 32 a barrel. There is no certainty that oil prices will remain at or above this level indefinitely. In fact, most analysts expect them to sink to around $22 to 24 a barrel sometime next year. Switching to ethanol therefore requires something more than a knee-jerk reaction to high oil prices. It is certainly no way of reducing the price of transport fuel to the consumer. What the Government needs to work out is not only the most economic cost of producing ethanol, but also the imputed value of the foreign exchange that its use will release for other uses, the protection it will offer against sudden spikes in oil prices, and above all the immense reduction in air pollution to be had from a completely clean burning fuel. Were it to do so, it would find that the cost to society of producing and using ethanol is far lower than its cost of production to the manufacturer. Unfortunately this too is not a new development but has always been so. What the Indian, and for that matter most other governments have lacked if the will to take social and not just 'private' costs into account when taking their decisions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyrights � 2000 The Hindu -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> eGroups eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/5/_/837408/_/973025927/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
