Date : 14/07/2023

Relevance: GS Paper 3: Energy

Keywords: E20, Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA), Ethanol Blending

Context-

E20 petrol, or petrol with 20 percent ethanol, is now available at 1,350 fuel retail outlets and will be available all over the country by 2025,

Expansion of E20 petrol

• The sale of E20 petrol was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February this year, starting with 84 retail outlets of public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs).
• In just about five months, the number of outlets dispensing E20 petrol has jumped to 1,350.
• In all, India has close to 87,000 fuel retail outlets, with the three OMCs–Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation–having a cumulative market share of over 90 percent.
• The minister also announced that the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA) will be opened to other countries for membership on July 22 at G20 Energy Transition Ministerial Meeting in Goa.

What is Biofuel?

• Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil.
• Since biomass can be used as a fuel directly (e.g., wood logs), some people use the words biomass and biofuel interchangeably.
• However, the word biofuel is usually reserved for liquid or gaseous fuels, used for transportation.
• Most of biofuel consumption occurs as a blend with refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, and kerosene-type jet fuel.
• However, some biofuels do not require blending with their petroleum counterparts and are referred to as drop-in biofuels.
• The most common biofuels now are – Bioalcohols such as ethanol, propanol, and butanol (a substitute for petrol/gasoline); Biodiesel (a substitute for diesel); Bio-oils (substitutes for kerosene).

Generations of Biofuel

Biofuels are also divided into four categories depending on their origin and production technologies.

First generation –

• 1G biofuels are produced from consumable food items containing starch (rice and wheat) and sugar (beets and sugarcane) for bioalcohols, or vegetable oils for biodiesel.
• However, the yields of 1G biofuels are low and can have negative impacts on food security.

Second generation –

• 2G biofuels are mainly obtained from non-food feedstocks such as forest/industry/agricultural wastes and waste or used vegetable oils.

Third generation –

• 3G biofuels, known as ‘algae fuel’, are derived from algae in the form of both, biodiesel and bioalcohols.
• Although the yield of 3G biofuels is approximately 10 times higher than 2G biofuels, producing adequate algal biomass and scaling up extraction techniques are as yet unresolved challenges.

Fourth generation –

• Like the third generation, 4G biofuels are made using non-arable land.
• However, unlike the third, they do not need the destruction of biomass.
• This class of biofuels includes electro fuels and photo-biological solar fuels.

What is Ethanol Blending?

• Ethanol is a biofuel, naturally produced by the fermentation of sugars by yeasts or by petrochemical processes like ethylene hydration.
• Ethanol is high in oxygen content, allowing an engine to more thoroughly combust fuel.
• In ethanol blending, a blended motor fuel containing ethyl alcohol derived from agricultural products is blended with petrol specifically.

How is Ethanol Produced?

• In India, the nodal department for the promotion of fuel-grade ethanol-producing distilleries is the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD).
• Ethanol is produced or procured from sugarcane-based raw materials which are heavy molasses, sugarcane juice, sugar syrup, surplus rice with Food Corporation of India (FCI), and maize.
• A paper released by the NITI Aayog stated, that in 2019, over 110 billion liters of ethanol fuel was produced globally.
• The US and Brazil account for 84% of the global production followed by the European Union, China, India, Canada, and Thailand.

Benefits of Ethanol Blending

• Presently, India imports over 85 percent of its oil requirement and ethanol blending could help in reducing dependency on petroleum.
• In 2020-21, the net import of petroleum in India was 185 million tonnes at USD 551 billion.
• Thus, ethanol blending can help in saving billions of dollars for the country and reduce import dependency.
• Also, ethanol is a less polluting fuel and equally efficient at a lower cost than petrol.

India’s Biofuel Policy

• In 2021-22, the Central government amended the Biofuel Policy (2018) to set a target of country-wide blending rates of 20% ethanol and 5% biodiesel by 2025.
• India achieved the target of 10 percent ethanol blending in petrol in June 2022, months ahead of the targeted timeline of November 2022.
• According to the government’s estimates, the ethanol blending program has translated into foreign exchange savings of over Rs 54,000 crore in the past nine years.
• Over the past eight years, the OMCs are estimated to have paid distillers over Rs 82,000 crore for ethanol supplies, of which Rs 48,000 crore went to farmers.
• As for its environmental impact, the blending program has so far led to a reduction of 30 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA)

• The Global Biofuel Alliance is one of the priorities under India’s G20 Presidency and was announced by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
• The US and Brazil, which are working with India to build the GBA, are seen as global leaders in biofuels and account for 55 percent and 27 percent of global ethanol production, respectively.
• The GBA is also being supported by major international organizations like the World Economic Forum, the International Energy Forum, and the International Energy Agency, among others.
• The Alliance is expected to be launched on July 22 during the G20 Clean Energy Ministerial in Goa.

The objective of the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA)

• To facilitate cooperation and intensify the use of sustainable biofuels, including in the transportation sector.
• It will place emphasis on strengthening markets, facilitating global biofuels trade, development of concrete policy lesson-sharing, and provision of technical support for national biofuels programs worldwide.
• The GBA will have a three-category membership structure bringing together member countries, partner organizations, and industries.

Source The Hindu