Context
With a view to ensure maximum participation by the entrepreneurs and cooperation by State Governments, a meeting was held by Department of Food &Public Distribution with States and Industry Associations to implement Scheme to enhance ethanol distillation capacity in the country for producing 1st Generation (1G) ethanol.
About the Scheme
- Scheme to enhance ethanol distillation capacity aims to enhance ethanol distillation capacity in the country for producing 1st Generation, 1G ethanol from feed stocks such as cereals like rice, wheat, barley, corn and sorghum and sugarcane, sugar beet etc.
- Significance: The 1st Generation ethanol production is important to:
- To boost agricultural economy
- To reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel
- To save foreign exchange on account of crude oil import bill
- To reduce the air pollution
- India to become ‘Atmanirbhar’ in petroleum sector
Production targets of 1st Generation ethanol
- The Government has fixed a target of 10% blending of fuel grade ethanol with petrol by 2022 and 20% blending by 2025.
- This has been done with a view to boost agricultural economy, to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel, to save foreign exchange on account of crude oil import bill and to reduce the air pollution.
Biofuels
- Biofuel is fuel that is produced through contemporary processes from biomass.
First-generation biofuels
- First-generation biofuels are fuels made from food crops grown on arable land.
- The crop's sugar, starch, or oil content is converted into biodiesel or ethanol, using transesterification, or yeast fermentation.
Second-generation biofuels
- Second-generation biofuels are fuels made from lignocellulosic or woody biomass, or agricultural residues/waste.
- The feedstock used to make the fuels either grow on arable land but are byproducts of the main crop, or they are grown on marginal land.
- Second-generation feedstocks include straw, bagasse, perennial grasses, jatropha, waste vegetable oil, municipal solid waste and so forth
Third-generation biofuels
- It uses algae. Algae can be produced in ponds or tanks on land, and out at sea.
- The produced fuel degrades faster than other biofuels, and it does not flow well in cold temperatures.
- By 2017, due to economic considerations, most efforts to produce fuel from algae have been abandoned or changed to other applications.
Fourth-generation biofuels
- This class of biofuels includes electrofuels and solar fuels.
- Electrofuels are made by storing electrical energy in the chemical bonds of liquids and gases.
- The primary targets are butanol, biodiesel, and hydrogen, but include other alcohols and carbon-containing gases such as methane and butane.
- A solar fuel is a synthetic chemical fuel produced from solar energy.
- Light is converted to chemical energy, typically by reducing protons to hydrogen, or carbon dioxide to organic compounds.
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