[redeff]

One factor that may be driving adoption of Ethanol in India is the reliance that India has on imported fuel. Gasoline is quite a large part of our imports, perhaps the ethanol blending is being pushed as sugarcane grows naturally in India?

[Naetik30]

Ethanol is green, as the sugarcane shoots are green. Thats about it.
You do realize, we have multiple levels of vested interests in any policy decision taken by any government in the world.

Time we all realize that we need to train our kids to be politicians. Not engineers or doctors.

[whitewing]

My take - green, but not environmentally friendly.

While one understands the motivation of the policy, in this case I fear the cure(water scarcity) is worse than the disease(forex costs).

In India, the primary source for Ethanol would be sugarcane. I don't read of corn being incentivized (although it has the least water impact).
In a water starved nation like India, scary that the planners go ahead rolling out increased production & consumption without implementing measures to handle the water scarcity.

From the niti ayog report https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/defaul...compressed.pdf

Environmental Cost: Sugarcane is a water intensive crop. On an average, one tonne of sugarcane can produce 100 kg of sugar, and 70 litres of ethanol. Cultivation of each kg of sugar requires 1600 to 2000 litres of water. Hence, one litre of ethanol from sugar requires about 2860 litres of water
. It is estimated that sugarcane and paddy combined use 70% of irrigation water of the country
. Keeping in view the need for water conservation, it is advisable to shift some of the area under sugarcane to less water intensive crops by providing suitable incentives to farmers. The Task Force on sugarcane and sugar Industry constituted under the Chairmanship of Professor Ramesh Chand, Member (Agriculture), NITI Aayog has suggested ways to minimize water consumption through various means to encourage farm diversification.

Till such a time water is "free", market forces will prevail and farmers will choose the most remunerative option, irrespective of the long term impact.

[Sheel]

My place had the first ethanol factory in Bihar.

But, repercussions are already up, the residuals (drained water) have resulted in destroying crops and near by fields. There is some infection to eyes as well, plus, there is a thin layer of some deposits found in trees near the plant.

A local media report. (It's in Hindi)

https://mainmedia.in/purnea-ethanol-...-side-effects/

[Fiero]

Im not in favour of higher and higher ethanol blending at all. There are better options, like promote strong hybrids on par with EVs for a few years. Worst part is it looks like this government will simply stop E10 in a couple of years without caring a damn about pretty much every petrol car on the road manufactured before 1 April 2023.

Looks like this is the sugar lobby having its field day with government at people's expense.

[ferrarirules]

My take on this, 10% ethanol blending is already happening in a lot of countries including performance sports like Formula 1.

Is it right to produce ethanol for blending?
- Yes, If the ethanol is being produced as by product of the sugar making process or it is being made from any other surplus crops like corn, sorghum etc.
- No, if the ethanol is being produced by a crop which is specially grown for ethanol production.

Is it green?

- Yes it is plants use CO2 to grow so CO2 produced by burning ethanol is used by the plants to grow.

The aim of the govt is to reduce as much as fuel import as possible to reduce dependency on oil rich countries.

[gauravanekar]

I had a Ford Figo since 2015. The anaemic naturally aspirated petrol engine was the only disappointment during the 7.5yr ownership. During May-23 I went on a long drive from Rajasthan to Kerala, and returned from Kerala to Rajasthan in Jul-23. The fuel efficiency was noticeably low , torque was very low as well. For a period I was worried about the engine until I realised it’s because of the sh***y ethanol blending.

I just couldn’t live with such a pathetic engine-fuel situation. With a little bit of push from my close friends, I sold it off in a jiffy.

For replacement, I was seriously considering Verna NA petrol CVT and City CVT initially. The fuel efficiency of either of cars in practical sense would have been equally pathetic like the outgoing Figo but atleast I’d be happy with the performance.

One fine evening it dawned on me. Buying a petrol in India right now is suicidal with the ever increasing ethanol blend. This govt. is not going away anytime soon (which I would prefer for all things except ethanol obsession).

Hence I decided to go with the Altroz diesel. PrasannaDhana’s excellent ownership thread reinforced my assumption that DPF issues in BS6 diesel comes to mostly those who drive the diesel engines like a cabbie and not for those who knows how to make the oil burner scream on a daily basis. Hence the decision.

Excuse the painful rant.