Biofuels without borders: India’s global biofuel alliance unites nations for sustainable fuels

financialexpress.com:

By Tushar Gandhi

India launched the Global Biofuel Alliance, an ambitious initiative aimed at fostering international collaboration and accelerating the development and adoption of biofuels. The official announcement of this groundbreaking alliance came during the Clean Energy Ministerial Meeting in Goa on July 22, 2023, with a formal launch planned at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi in September this year. Nineteen countries are standing with India on this.

Having achieved its 10 percent ethanol blending target, also known as E10, five months ahead of schedule in June 2022, India now sets its sights on an even more ambitious objective: achieving a 20 percent blend, or E20, by the end of 2025. Ethanol is a vital biofuel and plays a pivotal role in reducing India’s dependence on fossil fuels while curbing carbon emissions and air pollution.

During his address at the Auto Expo 2023 in January, featuring an Ethanol Pavilion for the first time, Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, highlighted India’s remarkable progress in ethanol blending. The country had increased its blending rate from 1.53 percent in 2013-14 to an impressive 10.17 percent by 2022.

This substantial uptick in ethanol utilization had yielded significant benefits, including savings of ₹41,500 crore (over USD 5 billion) in foreign exchange, a reduction of 27 lakh million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and had supported farmers with payments worth ₹40,600 crores (approximately USD 5 billion) over the past eight years.

In 2018, India reinforced its dedication to biofuels with the introduction of the National Biofuels Policy. This comprehensive policy framework encompasses blending targets, production incentives, tax