Food as fuel isn’t a plan that can take us very far

livemint.com:

₹15 per litre as a potential price of petrol, a fraction of what refills cost in India. At a poll rally, he said the government wanted farmers to not only be “anna daata" (food givers), but also “urjadaata" (energy providers) as cultivators of crops from which ethanol can be squeezed for biofuels to run vehicles. If an average of “60% ethanol and 40% electricity" was taken, he reportedly said, then petrol would sell for ₹15 per litre, to everyone’s benefit.

What exactly yielded this figure has been a subject of speculation. Earlier this year, India launched E20 fuel—petrol blended with 20% alcohol; a network of filling stations for it is expected to cover the country by 2025. The ‘bio’ input of E20 may seem low, but it is a step up from the E10 blend that has lately been in use after a gradual ascent from lower levels over the past decade.

If all goes by the Centre’s plan, vehicles will be adapted for efficient E20 use. Biofuels emit cleaner exhaust when burnt for energy and as a bonus could also lighten our oil import bill, but the constraint on the project is ethanol supply from distilleries that mostly use crops like sugarcane. The official feedstock list has been diversified to include surplus rice, maize and other damaged foodgrain.

Biofuel conversion has been slow. In 2021-22, our production of ethanol-doped petrol was put at nearly 4.4 billion litres. This is not a figure to sniff at, but still only a plop in the country’s huge pool of petrol consumption.