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Vinson Kurian

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, May 10

Taking the "mix-ethanol-with-petrol-and-drive-away-with-low-carbon-dioxide-emissions" campaign, mounted and spearheaded by the Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik, to its logical conclusion would necessitate infrastructure investments up to an estimated Rs 4,000 crore.

According to prognostications by Dr Kochu Baby Manjooran, Senior Quality Control Officer with Kochi Refineries, most States lack the infrastructure to produce anhydrous ethanol. "Getting the required infrastructure in place for this would alone require investments up to Rs 600 crore. This apart, petrol pumps all over the country would need to create separate storage tanks for the ethanol mixed petrol, which would entail investments of roughly Rs 3,500 crore. We are talking about total commitment of Rs 4,000 crore for the ethanol-petrol regime to truly settle," Dr Manjooran told Business Line.

These facts have been brought to light in a recently published book, Modern Petroleum Chemistry - An overview, authored by Dr Manjooran. Although the existing petrol-driven engines can run without any modification by blending ethanol with petrol up to the extent of 20 per cent, the Bureau of Indian Standards, as a matter of abundant caution, has cleared only 5 per cent of ethanol in petrol. In Brazil, ethanol is blended with petrol to the extent of 24 per cent while in the US, Canada and Sweden, ethanol is added to a maximum level of 10 per cent only.

The infrastructure costs apart, the ethanol proposal is fraught with other imponderables, says Dr Manjooran. For one, there is a view that ethanol, being easily oxidisable, may increase aldehyde emissions. Aldehyde reacts with nitrogen in the air to forms peroxy acetyl nitrate, a carcinogen.

For another, petrol (density 0.72 approx.), being lighter than ethanol (density 0.816 approx.), will float over the surface in the fuel tankers used for transporting it to petrol pumps. Such segregation can also happen in the petrol tanks of vehicles as well.

Also, widespread use of ethanol in fuels is said to be not viable because molasses (raw material for sourcing ethanol) would not be abundantly available in the country. Another major disadvantage is that manufacture of one litre of ethanol from molasses would use up some 15 litres of water. This seems to be a tall order at a time when fresh water is becoming increasingly difficult to source in desired quantities.

But, according to Dr Manjooran, there is no doubting the fair credentials of ethanol as an additive. For instance, it contains 35 per cent oxygen that can help complete the combustion of the fuel, thus reducing harmful tailpipe emissions by 30 per cent. Ethanol also helps displace toxic gasoline components such as benzene, a carcinogen. Ethanol is non-toxic, soluble in water and biodegradable. Thanks to its photosynthetic origin, ethanol is a renewable resource. On the other hand, petroleum-based fuels, whose supply is dwindling, have been found to contribute heavily to carbon dioxide emissions.

Ethanol also helps bring down the level of particulate emissions, especially fine particulates that pose a health threat to children, senior citizens, and those with respiratory ailments. Statistics attributed to the Petroleum Ministry say that use of ethanol of up to even by 5 per cent in petrol can lead to annual foreign exchange savings of Rs 800 crore.

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