Chapter I Introduction
1.3 Indian Scenario of Biofuel
Energy is a critical input for socio-economic development and it plays a pivotal role in the growth and development of economy, particularly for a developing country like India, where per capita energy consumption is quite low, but increasing steadily.India has total reserves (proved & indicated) of 757 million metric tonnes of crude oil and1241 billion cubic meters of natural gas as on 1.4.2011.Gross Production of Natural Gas in the country at 52.22 billion cubic metres during 2010-11 is 9.95% higher than the production of 47.50 billion cubic meters during 2009-2010 [9]. There is no doubt that fossil fuels will continue to play a prevailing role in the energy scenario in our country in the next few decades. In contrast, renewable energy resources are abundant so it is virtually inexhaustible. India is rich in renewable energy resources whose potential has not been properly tapped. Therefore, their use should be encouraged in every possible way.The total potential for renewable power generation in the country as on 31st March 2010 was estimated to be 90,313 MWand this data shows that renewable energy no more remains a futuristic segment and is fast becoming a mainstay. The primary energy supply by fuel types in India have showed (Fig 1.3) that the main energy products consumed in India are oil, coal, biomass and gas [10].
0.95%4.81%0.99%
52.96%
10.63%
29.66%
Oil
Natural Gas Coal
Nuclear Energy Hydro electricity Renew- ables
Fig 1.3 Primary energy consumption of fuel in India
Source: British petroleum statistical review of world energy 2011
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) lays down the overall policy guidelines for renewable energy programmes and provides budgetary support for research and development and demonstration of technologies; facilitates institutional finance to institutions; and promotes private investments through fiscal incentives, tax holidays, depreciation allowance and remunerative returns for power fed into the grid.
Indian government has mandated 10% blending of ethanol with gasoline, which amounted to about 1100 million liters of ethanol use. Further, India has a plan to expand biodiesel production to substitute 20% of diesel consumption by 2017. At present 5%
blending of ethanol with gasoline has been taken up by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in 20 States and four Union Territories.The prescribed blending levels will be reviewed and moderated periodically as per the availability of bio-diesel and bio-ethanol.
Beside this to avoid the fluctuations in the availability of biofuels, OMCs will be permitted to bank the surplus quantities left after blending of bio-diesel and bio-ethanol in a particular year, and to carry it forward to the subsequent year when there may be a shortfall in their availability to meet the prescribed levels. Moreover, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has also published IS: 2796: 2008 which covers specification for motor gasoline blended with 5% ethanol and motor gasoline blended with 10% ethanol [11].
Historically, biomass has been a major source of energy in each Indian household.
Even in this century, several types of woods and cow dung are the holder of approximately 40% non-commercial energy sources of the total energy supply in India [12] but due to its highly inefficient conversion to useful energy, the use of biomass represents only 18% of total primary energy usage. Rural households in India predominantly use wood as fuel for cooking and water heating. Modern technologies facilitate derivation of energy from several organic materials and can be used in a variety of conversion processes to yield power, heat/steam, and fuel. In India, the uses of these technologies are focused on conversion of waste materials such as municipal, agricultural, or forest residues to biofuels. Production of biofuels in India can also be viewed as an option for generating rural employment and to promote rural development.
Biofuel production will lead to creation of large number of jobs at multiple stages of the
biofuel supply-chain, such as production (cultivation and harvesting practices), transportation, processing and marketing.
With the massive rate of urbanization, the demand for energy has grown assorted in the past few years and will continue to grow in future. The usages of energy in India (KT of oil equivalent) is shown in Fig 1.4.
250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 0
100000 200000 300000 400000 500000 600000 700000
KT of oil equivalent - KT of oil equivalent per capita
Energy use (kg of oil equivalent per capita)
Energy use (KT of oil equivalent)
Year
Fig 1.4. Usage of energy in India (1980-2010)
Source : International Energy Agency (IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA, http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp)
Increasing rate of energy usage signifies the prosperity of the countries growth. Thus, there is an emerging energy supply-demand imbalance. Therefore, renewable energy has been an important component of India’s energy planning process since quite some time.
Biofuels are one of the major divisions of renewable sources of energy. The production of biofuel in India since 2000 is tabulated in Table 1.3.
Table 1.3. Comparison of biofuel production (Thousand tonnes of oil equivalent)
Year World India OECD
Non OECD
2000 9176 82 3841 5336
2001 10084 85 4350 5734
2002 11930 91 5406 6523
2003 14767 94 7045 7723
2004 16452 99 8549 7903
2005 19944 114 11013 8930
2006 25743 134 15054 10688
2007 34512 92 20494 14018
2008 46294 148 27728 18566
2009 52098 82 32569 19528
2010 59261 151 37130 22131
Source: British petroleum statistical review of world energy, 2011
From the available data it can be concluded (Table 1.3) that though the rate of biofuel production is quite high but the amount of biofuel production in India is not up to the mark compared to the rest of the world. The economy of India largely depends on agriculture which yields huge amount of agricultural residues and along with this good amount of forest residues can be harvested throughout the year which can be exploited for the production of biofuel. The major advantage of using biomass as a feedstock is its availability and there will be no upheaval for collection and formation of bio-refinery.