Food or fuel?
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Bio diesel blends are driving buses in Haryana, Karnataka and now Pune. As bio diesel becomes the buzzword and corporates rush to develop jatropha and oilseed plantations, experts warn of adverse effects on biodiversity and food security
After the successful completion of trials using bio diesel blends in public buses in Haryana and Karnataka, Pune has become the latest city to test-run its Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) buses on bio diesel. In June this year, Niranjan Kumar Sudhanshu, general manager, PMT, announced the successful completion of a one-month trial on 10 PMT buses running on a 20% bio diesel blend. The project was jointly undertaken by Garware Chemicals, Aurangabad, and the Pune-based Shirke Bio Healthcare Pvt Ltd. "Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) now aim to run over 100 buses on bio diesel in a second-stage trial, from July 1, 2006. If successful, the bio diesel blend will be used later for its 800-odd buses. This will help us save around Rs 12 crore a year," Sudhanshu announced.
The event generated a lot of excitement about the use of bio diesel in public transportation in India. "This symbolises the next step in expanding the use of bio diesel," quoted news items in the media.
Over the last five years, India has showed renewed interest in the use of bio diesel, which can either be used in diesel engines as a stand-alone fuel or blended with petro diesel. High crude oil prices, environmental concerns, an increasing trade deficit and strong political support all help paint a rosy picture for the bio diesel sector in India. A petroleum ministry official recently announced that the government was now aiming for a 20% blend of bio diesel by 2012.
Successful trials have been held in various parts of the country on cars, buses, even trains, using pure as well as blended bio diesel. Tata Motors in Pune is set to run 43 of its 150-bus fleet on 10% bio diesel, while Daimler Chrysler is currently in the second phase of its bio diesel project for the Mercedes C-class car. Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance and the Indian Railways have all, at one time or another, been in the news for successfully completed test runs using bio diesel.
What makes running a vehicle on bio diesel so attractive? "There are many important economic and environmental benefits of bio diesel," says Sudhanshu. "The adoption of bio diesel leads to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter emissions... Bio diesel can withstand temperatures of up to 150 degrees Celsius, unlike fossil fuels that have a flashpoint of only 50 degrees. This tolerance translates into safety. Bio diesel is easy to store, transport and handle. The fuel's cetane number is also high, which allows quick ignition and a smoother drive." When asked about increased levels of NOx (nitrogen oxide) from bio diesel, Sudhanshu replies that the percentage of NOx is much lower when bio diesel is used as a blend of up to 20%. And now there are a few companies that have found ways to keep NOx emissions down.
Sudhanshu is not the only champion of bio diesel. Abhijeet Shirke, managing director of Shirke Bio Healthcare, Pune, is all praise for this alternative fuel. "There is every possibility that vehicles can run on bio diesel, and with so much land available for its cultivation, even availability of raw material to produce bio diesel will not be an issue," he says. Shirke Bio Healthcare has pioneered the production of bio diesel; the company is currently operating bio diesel turnkey projects in 19 different countries. "We are producing bio diesel out of 82 different plants and oil seeds," he explains. The company has begun large-scale cultivation of jatropha in India, using contract farming methods.
Experts believe that, as a fuel, bio diesel has an important advantage over traditional crude oil: it is an indigenous oil source; the raw material can be produced and processed in India. Greater use of bio diesel could make India self-sufficient in terms of oil, thereby saving vital foreign exchange. Further, using bio diesel does not require engine modification. "Bio diesel is the only alternative fuel that can be run with any conventional, unmodified diesel engine," says R K Malhotra, general manager, R&D, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).
So, given all the perceived advantages, can bio diesel really be a viable energy alternative for India in the future? And would the switchover to bio diesel be easy?
"No," says G M Pillai, former Director General of the Maharashtra Energy Development Authority (MEDA) and currently head of a civil society organisation called WISE (World Institute of Sustainable Energy) in Pune. "There are several problems associated with the monocrop-based cultivation model being promoted in India." Pillai believes that the indiscriminate cultivation of jatropha as the only bio diesel crop in India will have adverse ecological and agricultural impacts. "Promotion of bio diesel crops is likely to occupy primary or secondary forested areas in due course, and will have an adverse effect on the region's biodiversity." According to Pillai, the likely competition for land between bio diesel crops and food crops must be closely monitored. He strongly opposes the cultivation of raw material for bio diesel at the cost of food crops. "A country like India must decide first what her priorities are: food or fuel."
Similar opinions have been voiced in published articles which say that "a country like India cannot switch from producing crops for the public good to those that benefit only a minority of car-owners and industries".
When asked about the use of bio diesel as a pure oil or as a blend, people express diverse views. Currently, only bio diesel blends B5 or B20, which means blending bio diesel with petro diesel up to 5% or 20%, is allowed in India. Shirke asks, why not 100%? According to him, although use of 100% bio diesel is possible, "it will never happen because of the presence of a strong petrol lobby in the country".
Sudhanshu, meanwhile, takes a more balanced stand saying: "Vehicles can switch more easily from conventional diesel to blends of bio diesel rather than pure bio diesel." Another reason Pillai gives for promoting only blended bio diesel is that, "not enough bio diesel is likely to be available at a reasonable price in the immediate future"..
Many see the cultivation of bio diesel crops as a tricky issue. Bio diesel is being promoted in India as most people believe that there is enough wasteland available in the country to grow the crop. But, Pillai warns, "in reality, not much wasteland is currently available in India that can be brought under bio diesel crop cultivation". This view is shared by S H Gade, the man in charge of the bio diesel programme at Pune's horticulture directorate. "A lot of wasteland in the state of Maharashtra has already been brought under horticulture," he says. H M Kulkarni, project executive, MEDA, also advocates a reality check on specific claims made in published literature that bio diesel crops like jatropha can be grown anywhere and do not require much irrigation. For good yields, commercial crops do require the minimum inputs of irrigation, fertilisers, etc. Kulkarni also disagrees with the claim that bio diesel crops like jatropha can be cultivated on degraded barren land and in drought-prone areas.
To make any project viable, says Kulkarni, certain minimum land area has to be brought under cultivation. "Our experience shows that the minimum area under cultivation should be 200 hectares to make processing economically viable." Considering the average land size of the individual Indian farmer, this seems possible only under collective farming.
Meanwhile, Pillai has reservations about India's dependence on jatropha as a low-cost source of bio diesel. "We should be against the promotion of any single crop for bio diesel on a large scale," he says. He suggests a strategy of multiple and diverse cropping of non-edible tree-borne oilseed that can be developed for bio diesel. Trees like Pongamia pinnata, neem, rubber and castor seeds.
Certain companies are producing bio diesel out of palm fatty acids imported from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Others are using Pongamia and rapeseed. Europe makes bio diesel from sunflower and rapeseed oil, the US from soybean oil and Thailand from palm oil. Recently, a bio diesel factory using coconut oil opened in the Philippines
But will enough bio diesel ever be produced to run a sizeable number of vehicles? Although there have been many successful trial runs on vehicles, the full-fledged adoption of bio diesel could be hindered by lack of supply. For example, the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) flagged off a fleet of buses running on bio diesel in March 2005. But the project sputtered to a halt within a few months, with the GSRTC blaming irregular supplies of bio diesel. The buses switched back to ordinary diesel.
Plantations of jatropha and Pongamia are only now being established in states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Gujarat. It will be two to three years before these plantations begin yielding sizeable quantities of oilseed that can be used as bio diesel.
But Sudhanshu does not consider this an obstacle. "We can get our required quantity from Garware Chemicals with whom we will make a formal agreement," he says. "Now there are many companies that can supply bio diesel to us."
Although the corporate sector seems to have responded positively to India 's bio diesel programme and the cultivation of bio diesel crops, the response from farmers has been less encouraging. Shirke points out that although there have been a few industry-led initiatives in cultivation so far, not many farmers have come forward to take up cultivation of bio diesel crops like jatropha. Gade and Kulkarni agree that the response of individual farmers has not been very positive in Maharashtra , even though the horticulture department's schemes are meant to encourage jatropha cultivation at the level of the individual farmer, not the corporate sector. In fact, the Maharashtra government's biotechnology and management of bio resources division has issued a Government Resolution suggesting the inclusion of jatropha in the horticulture-linked employment guarantee scheme. A subsidy of Rs 18.40 per plant will be offered for jatropha cultivation on uncultivable land available in the state from the year 2006-07.
Gade is also concerned about the non-availability of authentic, certified seeds for cultivation. "Most of the seeds sold currently are collected from forest regions, and there are a number of suppliers offering seeds at different prices... Right now there is a mad scramble to purchase jatropha seeds in order to start plantations, and these seeds are expensive. Seed trials are, of late, being initiated at the level of a few agriculture universities, but the results are still not out as most of these research trials are in the preliminary stages."
Kulkarni stresses the need for research focused on increasing seed productivity, better oil-extraction techniques, and research on crop performances in different agro climatic zones.
There are also worries about the sale and export of bio diesel. According to Shirke there aren't too many incentives, financial or otherwise, for private companies in India . "The procedure and licensing system for selling bio diesel is also absent in the state ( Maharashtra ). This restricts the sale and export of bio diesel by private companies." Currently, only public sector oil companies are allowed to market bio diesel after blending it with petro diesel. Although the Indian government announced a national bio diesel purchase policy in October 2005, enabling farmers and bio diesel producers to receive a support price of Rs 25 per litre for jatropha oil, industry players are not entirely sure if the fuel will prove commercially viable at this rate. "Why should we sell (bio diesel) in India when the same bio diesel can be sold in other countries at Rs 32-35/litre," asks Shirke.
Shirke strongly objects to the NOVAD (National Oilseed And Vegetable Oil Development Board)-supported scheme for setting up of small household-level bio diesel processing units. "It is very risky to start such units in rural households since it involves the use of harmful chemicals," he says. Bio diesel is produced through a simple chemical process known as trans-esterification, which is done to oil to replace the glycerine with methanol. This makes it possible to use processed plant oil as fuel.
Many aspects such as cultivation (protection of growers' interests), processing (protection of investment in processing facilities), marketing (petroleum companies and petrol pumps must fall in line), sale (securing a fair yet affordable price), consumption (quality standardisation, pricing) and penalties or legal measures for non-compliance with rules set up for bio diesel have received very little consideration from the policymakers, says Shirke. Representatives of private companies, like Shirke and Kulkarni, also complain about the lack of fiscal incentives, in the form of tax exemptions and duties on bio diesel, by the Maharashtra government.
So, even though bio diesel as a fuel alternative appears promising, at present India 's bio diesel programme is something of an obstacle race, the biggest hurdle being the lack of a clear-cut, long-term comprehensive policy.
(Rajashree Joshi is a Pune-based researcher)
InfoChange News & Features, July 2006