[alpha1]

Originally Posted by gsurya

Meaningless move from Govt on Ethanol. This is not a long term solution. Just trying to do so me early eyecatching announcements.

I think the meaning is well intentioned.

"The nation spends Rs 6 lakh crore on imports of petrol, diesel and gas. Huge crude and gas bill is the reason behind rupee depreciation."

We don't have to import ethanol, whereas we have to import the crude oil.

Our first objective should be to upgrade all refineries to Euro-5, will cost 60K crores at present prices.

Euro5 only means that sulfur emissions will come down.

I don't see how India will save money by doing that compared to Ethanol route. (Currently most refineries are capable of Euro4 which means 50 ppm sulfur in Diesel and Petrol. Euro5 will mean 10 ppm sulfur)

So what you get is reduced pollution, but ... saving money?

Then we need to make use of LPG/CNG much more widely; we have this in abundance.

No we don't. LPG comes from crude oil which is imported.
CNG comes from gas fields and imported LNG. It makes more sense to use natural gas in power plant and petrochem plants where it will be used more efficiently (compared to burning in vehicles) for power as well as a raw material.
Oh, and we do have a natural gas crunch in India today.

More Sops to be offered to smaller & more fuel efficient cars to encourage the best engines & technology comes here.

Invest aggressively in public transport, the push of the previous Govt to have Metro rail in each city with 1 crore or more population should be carried forward.

Even in this case it makes sense to have biodiesel and ethanol blends to reduce the govt's expenditure (on public transport). Besides, the last mile connectivity will always be a fossil fuel burner rather than the metro.
And the electricity required by Metro will anyway come from burning some type of fossil fuel like coal or gas. In which case I have already stated earlier that it makes more sense to burn gas in a power plant than in private vehicle.

We need 'developed' cities where we WONT need to use cars for commuting to office daily, but as a recreational vehicle for weekends & outings.

Definitely. But seriously speaking if we look around - do the developed cities in the world - New York, London, Tokyo NOT have vehicles burning petrol/diesel during office hours on weekdays? These cities have excellent public transport and metro service.

[gsurya]

1. If Ethanol is encouraged, it will reduce land available for food crops increasing food costs for our poor. Its what happened in Brazil & caused huge unrest.
2. In every major city a car is unaffordable for most except the upper class due to the big taxes & parking costs; I certainly couldnt when I lived in Singapore & Copenhagen
3. There is abundance of gas that can be imported from Middle East, Iran etc - we dont even produce all car components anyway
4. We need to expedite nuclear projects that were pushed by the last Govt
5. We tripled our power generation since 2004, now we need to move even faster
6. If I can get into an AC bus, metro or local to get anywhere in the city without a big crowd crush I would certainly not use my car daily to work

[yosbert]

Originally Posted by gsurya

1. If Ethanol is encouraged, it will reduce land available for food crops increasing food costs for our poor. Its what happened in Brazil & caused huge unrest.
2. In every major city a car is unaffordable for most except the upper class due to the big taxes & parking costs; I certainly couldnt when I lived in Singapore & Copenhagen
3. There is abundance of gas that can be imported from Middle East, Iran etc - we dont even produce all car components anyway
4. We need to expedite nuclear projects that were pushed by the last Govt
5. We tripled our power generation since 2004, now we need to move even faster
6. If I can get into an AC bus, metro or local to get anywhere in the city without a big crowd crush I would certainly not use my car daily to work

1. Fully agree.
2. Pretty radical conclusion to draw based on insufficient data points.
3. The operative word is 'imported'. That costs valuable foreign exchange.
4. 5. Don't know how that will solve the automotive fuel problem, unless you are pointing to electric vehicles, to which again I whole-heartedly agree.
6. You are speaking for yourself. As someone already pointed out, the last mile connectivity is the stumbling block for many of the lazy bones.

[rsidd]

Originally Posted by yosbert

2. Pretty radical conclusion to draw based on insufficient data points.

I think OP refers to major cities abroad (though it perhaps includes Mumbai). In New York and Paris almost nobody I knew owned a car (if they wanted one they rented one, which was maybe a few times a year), and a large fraction of cars on the streets were taxis and limousines. And traffic jams still occurred, but not on the scale that they do in India, and -- especially in Paris -- the streets are much narrower so it's understandable.

[gsurya]

Originally Posted by yosbert

3. The operative word is 'imported'. That costs valuable foreign exchange.
4. 5. Don't know how that will solve the automotive fuel problem, unless you are pointing to electric vehicles, to which again I whole-heartedly agree.

4. We will always be importing oil & gas we just dont have those kind of reserves that we need - unless we find another 2-3 Bombay Highs. Shale Gas is promising but right now too expensive to produce.

5. Yes, I meant all public transport should be only on electricity & gas - bulk freight should move back to trains instead of trucks - right now diesel subsidy is causing a lopsided approach. Thankfully its now down to just 4 Rs/litre, should be gone by end of this year.

[sgiitk]

even E95 is not a going proposition in India. Anhydrous Ethanol is not available in sufficient quantities, and is costlier than basic petrol.

So thoughts of Gadkari are just that?!

[Guna]

Originally Posted by gsurya

[list=1][*]If Ethanol is encouraged, it will reduce land available for food crops increasing food costs for our poor. Its what happened in Brazil & caused huge unrest.

I was thinking on the same. It is going to eat in to the food production and inflate the food prices ( then we will end up importing more food grains)

[whitewing]

Not taking away the merits of the case to use ethanol and not wanting to give a political overtone...
This this guy Gadkari was embroiled in some controversy a couple of years back - that he had interests in some sugar mills... So, these statement must be taken with a pinch of salt..

[gsurya]

Originally Posted by Guna

I was thinking on the same. It is going to eat in to the food production and inflate the food prices ( then we will end up importing more food grains)

This article describes perfectly why this Gadkari gas of Ethanol is dangerous:

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/sta...risome-1992688

[honeybee]

The article is good on theoretical options. Considering the current power generation scenario and problems faced by existing petrol pump owners to renew their leases, it will be a few years till such a framework for electric vehicles can be set up.

[torque!!]

Ford and GM(?) sells vehicles in the US marked FlexiFuel. These vehicles are special in the sense that they can run on regular gasoline as well as E85. Although I did see a fair number of FlexiFuel vehicles in the US, I have never ever seen a gas station selling E85. Perhaps they are akin to petrol pumps selling CNG in India. Just a few, here and there.

But the idea of having a car that can run both makes sense. It will allow the government to reduce the import of crude oil. Perhaps, there is a case for different fuel types to co-exist.

Some folks are of the opinion that electric vehicles are the answer to reducing oil consumption. I am not sure if I agree. India still produces majority of its electricity by burning coal. Moving from one fossil fuel to another does not solve the energy security problem. And I seriously question how Green are electric vehicles. They can not be unless the electricity they consume is green.

So, I strongly feel that our answer to reducing fuel imports is a mix of regular fuel, CNG, E85 and even Bio-Diesel.

[Diesel_convert]

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

Absolutely ridiculous! I don't want this dirty fuel in my car! (E85 pollutes more & degrades the engines)

Originally Posted by latentpotential

The problem with using ethanol as fuel in a large-scale way comes down to two primary, related issues:
There's not nearly as much energy in ethanol as there is in gasoline.
Creating significant amounts of energy from food crops would deplete the amount of land available for growing actual food for people to eat.
While most experts agree on these two points, they tend to differ in terms of degree.

http :// environment.about.com/od/ethanolfaq/f/ethanol_problem.htm

“Replacing only five percent of the nation’s diesel consumption with biodiesel would require diverting approximately 60 percent of today’s soy crops to biodiesel production,” says Matthew Brown, an energy consultant and former energy program director at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Originally Posted by yosbert

I agree to the comments about the energy efficiency of ethanol and the diversion of huge tracks of land for producing fuel for cars instead of for humans (food).

However, for the dirtying effects of the new fuel, do read the original post again. E85 is not meant to work with the current cars and engines we have in India. The article talks about importing E85 specific engines from Brazil and Canada, where it is already being used in large scale (I presume). All the concerns expressed must have been addressed in some way before introducing it there.

Originally Posted by Desi Dybuk

E85 will be marginally cheaper than regular Gasoline. And considering this is India, what's to stop unscrupulous petrol pump owners from mixing E85 with Regular petrol?

If we want to save money on fuel import bills, then the first act would be to get rid of the smoke belching, subsidised fuel guzzling commercial trucks off the road. Expanding the road network so that they're not always clogged, addition of capacity for rail cargo etc would go a long way in that.

Originally Posted by gsurya

Meaningless move from Govt on Ethanol. This is not a long term solution. Just trying to do so me early eyecatching announcements.

Originally Posted by gsurya

1. If Ethanol is encouraged, it will reduce land available for food crops increasing food costs for our poor. Its what happened in Brazil & caused huge unrest.

The reaction in the forum is a bit surprising!

I have three points to make.

1) Ethanol is a very viable fuel. Runs great in engines designed for it. Brazil has been running cars on 100% ethanol since the 70's. Its a proven technology.
also http://www.koenigsegg.com/models/ccxr/ if you have doubts about performance


2) Land use argument is false for two reasons in India

• We are the worlds largest producer of sugar cane and ethanol is a by-product. (production in 1000's of million liters).
• Also due to the low price of ethanol in the market sugar mills haven't really fully exploited the amount of ethanol they can produce.
• We have the second largest amount of arable land in the world, 300 days of sunshine and an average of 1.3 crops grown per year, where we can actually grow 4 crops.

3) Pricing is currently at around <Rs40 per liter in Karnataka. Its a readily available substitute and we should exploit it!




Please don't use data from American corn ethanol as a reason to why we shouldn't use ethanol.

Its time we started to look out for our interests instead of aping the west.

[rlakhanpal]

Getting another type of fuel and resultant changes in engine has simply too many costs for Infra, security against pilferage, conversion from older tech. Both for users and the govt.

All that effort and cost is better invested in a comprehensive mass public transport policy and implementation. That will be sustainable for a longer term.

Moving from one fuel to another is like allopathy - cure the symptom and move to next. It will not 'solve the problem'.

Three types of vehicles need to be limited on the road:
Cars
Trucks
Autos/point-to-point cabs

Trucks should feed to rail, autos to buses and metro rail, cars only for personal unscheduled travel (with impact fee).

On a side note: in Gujarat, easy availability of ethanol at petrol pumps might see more people line up behind the outlet than in front! For easy hooch!

[honeybee]

Get real. Public transportation in Mumbai is crumbling.

[rlakhanpal]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Get real. Public transportation in Mumbai is crumbling.

It will, because there is no 'plan' for sustainability.

'Fill it, shut it, and forget it till the junta screws it' is not going to help anyways. Public transport in all major cities is crumbling because the swarm of our junta pounced on these cities as we grew. There was no plan, let's take it as it comes.


Even here in Ahmedabad with its success with BRTS etc, there doesn't seem to be any decongestion plan. Major industrial development is in progress all around, and that will lead to congestion even in the fringes in another 5 years; unless EMU loops etc are planned to connect these industrial areas with feeders from residential zones.

It might sound radical but E85 or any other micro-commute fuel is like handing out a new type of gun to general public because the police is ineffective - its still a gun. Unfortunately we will end up shooting ourselves with it.