Karnataka buses to run on ethanol-blended fuel

The country's third largest public transport provider with a fleet of 17,500 buses in its four zonal corporations, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has adopted innovative environment-friendly and energy management initiatives.

This includes a 10 per cent cut in its consumption of 40 crore litres of diesel by blending it with ethanol.

KSRTC began its trials of operating buses running on honge oil-blended diesel in Doddaballapur. Honge or pongamia produces seeds from which an inedible oil is extracted.

After successful trials, it is extending the fossil fuel-saving measure in 20 depots in the state, including all the four depots in Mysore, by August-end. The 20 depots at present consume 60 lakh litre of diesel per annum. Ethanol-blended diesel will help cut expenditure on fuel by Rs 1.2 crore, as ethanol is available at Rs 19.94 a litre.

It will be replicated in 100 more depots and all its 2,500 transport buses will be run on ethanol-blended diesel. This will bring down carbon emissions by 70 per cent apart from reducing fuel consumption, KSRTC environment officer PS Ananda Rao said in Mysore on the 'renewable energy day'.

The trials for blending bio-fuel components with diesel were taken up in August 2005 in the Doddaballapur depot by setting up a pilot plant for pongamia-diesel blending.

Initially, two buses were run and now 76 buses run on honge oil blended diesel. However, the price of honge oil is almost the same as diesel.

With 17,500 buses carrying 2.2 million passengers every day, the KSRTC intends to cut diesel consumption by 10 per cent, by blending it with ethanol. "The 10 per cent ethanol mixed with diesel has shown that emission levels can be cut drastically," he said.

With this energy-saving initiative, Karnataka has become the first state to introduce ethanol-blended diesel for public transportation, Ananda Rao said.

KSRTC's 'Jala Shakthi'(water energy) experimental bus is testing the use of water for cutting emission of buses, by injecting a spray of water at the time of fuel combustion. Tests have been satisfactory, Rao said.