Is ethanol making environment-friendly?

Debates help in clearing misconceptions about issues central to the national interest. For example, recently, there was talk that molasses, a by-product of extraction of juice from cane by sugar factories, should ideally be used for making chemicals and liquor than ethanol. Chemicals offer the highest value addition to molasses and states earn substantial revenue when liquor is made from the cane by-product. Going further against the renewable fuel, it is contended ethanol is not as clean as it is made out to be and the energy value per unit of ethanol is less than the energy used to make it.

Despite all such arguments, developed and emerging nations are promoting the use of renewable energy of various kinds, to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and cut their carbon footprints. It is natural that major cane-growing countries will be producing ethanol, either from molasses or directly from cane as is the case with Brazil. In the current Brazilian cane crop year that started this month, the country's sugar sector is likely to use 58 per cent of the expected 622 million tonnes (mt) of the cane crop for direct ethanol production. But, because of emerging weakness in petrol prices, the Brazilian cane allotment is likely to undergo change in favour of crushing for sugar.

As for chemicals units in India, the global price of molasses come into play in deciding the proportion they will use foreign-origin and local stuff in a year. Now that the sugar sector here has built ethanol production capacity of 2,239 million litres and Delhi, in step with globally accepted practice has made it mandatory for oil marketing companies (OMCs) to blend the renewable fuel with petrol, sugar factories with ethanol plants have found a steadily growing and remunerative outlet for molasses. The process of blending ethanol with petrol began here in 2007. Last year, against OMCs inviting tenders that would amount to 10 per cent mixing of ethanol, sugar factories pledged 1,200 million litres, taking the country close to five per cent blending. Taking the programme forward, based on local availability and mounted on a fixed ethanol pricing policy, the January OMC procurement programme sought 10 per cent mixing for eight states but five per cent countrywide.

The target to blend ethanol in bigger proportions with petrol is driven by two considerations, to curb carbon emissions and to strengthen a revenue channel for sugar factories."Because of its high oxygen content, ethanol blends well with petrol and the mixed material burns well in car engines. As a result, vehicle running on blended fuel will cause less pollution than one burning petrol alone," says Abinash Varma, director-general, Indian Sugar Mills Association. His claims are backed by Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Indian Oil Corporation research results. Cane-based bio-ethanol being among the "cleanest fuels and with capacity to curb car emissions" is finding growing favour with many developed countries, though they are import-dependent.

Sugarcane growing requires large volumes of water. But, then, India is the world's largest consumer at 26 mt a year. One might argue land and water used for growing cane can be more profitably used for other purposes. Can India with its voracious appetite for sugar afford to be import-dependent? "Certainly not," says Varma.

Reports of any setback to the cane crop in either Brazil or India will invariably send raw and white sugar prices up a few notches. We have seen recently how the market went aflutter on news of five mt world sugar deficit this season. Moreover, how can the country abandon 50 million farmers and their families making a living out of growing cane?

Also, consider the employment that 550 sugar factories provide and the large number engaged in distribution of the commodity. If India stops making sugar, then in a stroke, 5,000 Mw of electricity that cane crushing units give to the grid after meeting their own requirements of 3,000 Mw will disappear. Better farm practices and introduction of drip irrigation on a large scale will make the cane crop's water use more efficient.

ECONOMY OF ETHANOL

• Molasses, a by-product resulting from extraction of juice from cane by sugar factories, could ideally be used for making chemicals and liquor than ethanol
   
• Chemicals offer the highest value addition to molasses and states earn substantial revenue when liquor is made from the cane by-product