Along with the healthy growth of the automotive industry in India, a combination of Indian government, institutions and companies are playing a vital role in establishing alternative fuel sources in the country with a strong focus on bio-diesel. Deepesh Rathore and Tilak Swarup report.
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After evaluating various options and case studies of projects globally, the Planning Commission, under the Government of India, has set up committees to analyse the feasibility of bio-diesel and chart out a roadmap. Over the last few years universities, oil companies, public utilities, carmakers, private companies and institutions have all entered the fray in the search for a bio-diesel answer to India’s growing energy concerns.
The need
India’s oil pool deficit is widening by the year while its dependency on crude imports has risen to some 70% of requirements. In the booming economy (7-8% annual GDP growth), the automotive sector is posting very healthy expansion rates, probably the quickest in the world excluding China. This is exerting pressure on fuel imports and also causing increased pollution.
While pollution levels have reached alarming levels, some respite has come from mandating use of CNG in bus fleets in the big cities; but to reach the next level is proving more difficult. Diesel cannot be fully replaced so the priority is to make diesel more environmentally friendly. Improving the quality of diesel by reducing the sulphur content is one way of doing that but more work is required to address the various domestic needs.
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By GlobalDataAfter doing feasibility tests on many options Jatropha oil seed-based bio-diesel has emerged as a feasible potential solution to India’s fuel problems.
Advantages
The advantages of using Jatropha in bio-diesel are related to its environmentally clean properties and easy domestic production. Bio-diesel fuel emits substantially fewer un-burnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter while containing almost no sulphur and aromatics, making it a cleaner fuel. It has 10% built-in oxygen which aids full combustion. Further, its higher cetane number gives off better ignition even when mixed in a petroleum diesel blend.
The bio-diesel properties above, when incorporated into petro-diesel will help Indian refineries to meet diesel quality as required by new vehicles as Indian emission standards are raised progressively to Euro IV by 2010.
The viability of Jatropha based bio-diesel in the country makes an even stronger case when its social benefits are factored in. According to the Economic Survey (1995-96) by the Government, 100 to 150 million hectares of cultivable land is classified as waste or degraded land. The big positive for Jatropha here is that it is a rugged plant that thrives on any soil. It also has toxic properties rendering it pest proof and useless to cattle. The upside for the eventual use of this property is as a pesticide for general use in India.
The plant’s ruggedness also allows for minimal care and survival through droughts – a common occurrence in India.
Even if just 10% of this wasteland is cultivated with Jatropha, then 10 million hectares of wasteland is brought into productive use. The yield garnered would be 15 million tons of seed and 4 million tons of oil. In comparison to diesel, it amounts to one tenth of India’s demand annually.
This project could also generate enormous employment in the rural areas where poverty is the highest. Taken in perspective, even if one member per family is employed per five hectares of a Jatropha farm, two million additional jobs are created. Further, there will be employment created by oil extraction units.
The initiatives: DaimlerChrysler India
DaimlerChrysler, in partnership with University of Hoehenheim and CSMCRI, is researching on two aspects of bio-diesel in India. One is to find out the best way to cultivate the Jatropha crop; and secondly how to process the seed to produce bio-diesel in the most cost effective manner.
Currently, three pilot projects are run with a total capacity of 100 litres of bio-diesel a day. Initially, the CSMCRI team sowed the Jatropha plants and bought eight tons of Jatropha seeds from farmers to begin work, not waiting for the harvest which would entail a years wait.
By early 2004, the 1,300 litres of bio-diesel produced using different processes was passed on to DaimlerChrysler India for fuel runs in the Mercedes Benz C220 CDI car. The vehicle, modified with compatible elastomers in the fuel system, made a 5,900 km run between April and May 2004 through eleven major cities of India. The course involved a wide range of terrain, temperatures, and altitudes to ascertain a holistic picture of bio-diesel run vehicles characteristics.
The findings of the exercise were heartening to the project team. They found that the Jatropha based bio-fuel can be used satisfactorily in a modern CRDI engine with only a few changes and emitted half the unburned hydrocarbons and one third the particulate emissions compared to petroleum derived diesel. Further, the laboratory tests confirmed that fuel emissions meet the EU quality for bio derived fuels though the quality has not yet reached optimal levels.
IOC and Tata Motors
India’s largest oil company Indian Oil (IOC) has developed and patented a process to produce bio-diesel, as well as by-products of economic value such as glycerine and oil cake, from Jatropha oil. In early 2004, IOC had planted 40 hectares of Jatropha in Surendra Nagar, Gujarat, which in 2005 will be supplemented with another 30 acres. IOC found that no modification was needed to store the fuel and in the diesel pump. Further, the emissions contained 80% less carbon monoxide and nearly 100% less sulphur dioxide.
IOC joined hands with Tata Motors for a bio-diesel project in March 2005. Tata scaled up its bio-diesel project, adding a fleet of 43 buses to the two Tata Indica cars and a few LCVs. The Indicas have run 10,000km on the B10 bio-diesel. IOC has installed a bio-diesel blend fuel pump exclusively for Tata Motors in Pimpri. Tata will try to understand the feasibility of bio-diesel fuel on the fleet of 43 buses and act accordingly on the remainder of its 160 bus fleet. These are company transportation buses plying a daily distance of 160 km in varying traffic with realistic ‘brake, stop and restart’ conditions.
Brihan Mumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) is running a test project on its fleet of buses, amongst the largest bus fleets world wide, in Mumbai. The objective is to reduce the air pollution in the city. The project is supported by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) which imported a shipment of bio-diesel from USA based Pure Energy Corporation in September 2004.
This was the second shipment from Pure Energy to India. The previous batch of biodiesel was consigned to IOC for a government-sponsored trial in Indian Railways and Haryana State bus corporation.
IIT
In a parallel project at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, The Centre for Energy Studies has worked on a Tata Indica diesel engine and optimised it after significant modifications for the bio-diesel fuel. Dr MK Gajendra Babu of IIT said that in arrangement with Tata Motors, the engine is being developed for launch in time for the commercial launch of bio-diesel.
Indian Railways
The world’s largest employer, the Indian Railways (IR), has planned to use bio-diesel eventually on its nearly 4,000 diesel locomotives run every day. The consumption at IR accounts for 60% of the country’s demand or two billion litres of diesel per annum costing INR 44 billion. IR has initiated Jatropha cultivation along its wide network of tracks and uses the oil derived in bio-diesel for its engines. Jatropha saplings will be planted by IOC on the land provided by IR. Two pilot projects have successfully been tested on two separate routes. Bio-diesel for these was sourced via IOC from Gujarat Oleo Chemicals based in Gujarat.
India’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India (SBI) has announced its intention to support cultivation of Jatropha growers to the tune of INR 1.3 billion in 2005 in the state of Tamil Nadu. A MoU was signed with DI Mohan Bio Oils, a joint-venture between Mohan Breweries and DI Oils of UK. Farmers will be identified jointly and financed under the scheme. SBI has stipulated cost of cultivation per acre at INR 10,760 and INR19, 560 under dry-land and irrigation conditions respectively for a target of 100,000 acres. The bank is ready to finance up to 90% of the cost while DI Mohan Bio Oils will supply saplings, fertilizers and pesticides to the chosen farmers in a buyback arrangement. DI Mohan Bio Oils will pay INR 5,000 per tonne or at the market price, whichever is higher. The transaction with the farmer will be routed through the bank and the crop will be insured with New India Assurance Company.
DI Mohan Bio Oils will invest INR 1.0 billion in a 100,000 tpa unit by 2007 though it will start with a 8,000 tpa pilot unit at an investment of INR 150 million and scale it up by 2007. The joint-venture partner DI Oils holds an option to export 25% of the oil produced by DI Mohan to international customers.
Besides that scheme, in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh, Southern Online Biotechnologies broke ground for a processing plant in February 2005. This unit in the Nalgonda district is being established with assistance from Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, IIT, Delhi, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and technical support is from Lurgi of Germany and the German Government. Another such project was announced by Hyderabad based Naturol Bioenergy Ltd for a processing plant in coastal town of Kakinada. In a JV with Energea GmbH of Austria and Fe Clean Energy of USA, the proposed plant will have an eventual capacity of 300 tonnes per day at an investment of INR 1.35 billion. The company has asked the government for 50 acres at a concessional rate for the plant while aiming to bring 200,000 hectares of wasteland under cultivation in the region primarily with Jatropha.
The Gujarat State Transport Corporation has begun bio-diesel bus service, initially with four buses using B5 fuel (5% biodiesel) in the Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad route.
Economics
While many agencies have varied calculations on the economics of mass scaling bio-diesel, currently it would work out more expensive than its petroleum counterpart along with a potentially larger volatility in prices with uncertain supplies. But once the various pilot projects mature and are scaled up, the by-products find market and the entire value chain gains confidence on viability, the price can be driven down to petro-diesel level. As years progress and yield improves, the deal only gets better.
Progress
While great strides have been achieved in the technology and usability of the Jatropha derived bio-diesel in India, the primary question for its large-scale use is scalability and price. A paradigm shift will be vital at the grass root level to motivate the farmers to grow Jatropha which so far was considered a wild and useless plant. An education program including the entire gamut of the project needs to be planned to sustain the project given the magnanimity of the land and employment which will be involved. Start up costs for the complete infrastructure would runs into billions of Dollars so a collaborative effort between public and private sectors in plantations, extraction plants, R&D and marketing is required.
Deepesh Rathore / Tilak Swarup
