India, which is the largest grower of sugarcane in the world and also the second largest producer of sugar, wants to use the crop more than just as a sweetener.
India will be using this massive oversupply of sugar to boost eco-friendly fuel and for this a GoM, headed by the external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee has recommended that India should adopt a mandatory blending of 10% ethanol with petrol to run cars.
Ethanol can be produced from the fermentation of sugars such as corn, sugar cane, grains and beet. Talking about India, ethanol is mostly made from rectified spirit which comes from molasses - a by-product in sugar manufacturing. Out of the total sugar production 45-50% is molasses.
This is an interesting move as India is undergoing an industrial revolution, because of which the pollution levels here are quite high, but using fuel which not only is eco-friendly but also costs less than normal petrol and has a higher octane content, will surely put India on the green map of the world.
Via: World Is Green
This is a very bad idea. If you are well versed in the science at all, it becomes easy to recognize that ethanol solves no problems. Production of ethanol for fuel uses biomass that would be otherwise used for food production; and with world food security at a crisis point, especially in India and China, this could have disastrous effects on world hunger and food markets, which are already under strain from Climate Change. The relative inefficiency of ethanol production has been well documented, and in a country like India, with a large population and a shortage of food, this is the worst way to comply with pressure from western countries to be more eco-friendly. Such pressure should be eased on these nations; we and they need to find better ways of cutting carbon than the potential starvation of millions of people.
Ethanol is not, and never will be a green energy source, and using it to stave off Climate Change is a half measure, one that could have disastrous consequences, with projections of a 20-30 percent loss of agricultural productivity in warm/tropical climates like India.
Environmentalists should not accept ethanol as a green fuel source, it is simply a cash cow for countries trying to reduce their dependancies of foreign oil. India should export its sugar surplus and help ease the strain on world food markets where available food for nations that need it is increasingly scarce.
