An oil refinery in a region in India that\u2019s more famous for its tea plantations is hoping to put its abundant greenery to new use.<\/p>\n
A $200 million joint venture between Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. and Finnish technology firm Chempolis Oy will crush bamboo, the longest of the grass family, to produce 60 million liters of ethanol every year in the tea producing state of Assam. That\u2019s enough to meet mandatory requirements for blending with gasoline in the entire northeastern region. The eight states that lie at the foot of the Himalayas together make up about two-thirds of India\u2019s total bamboo production. <\/p>\n
\u201cBamboo is in abundance in the northeastern states. It grows everywhere,\u201d said the Indian state-run refiner\u2019s managing director S.K. Barua in New Delhi. \u201cIt will be a game changer for us and for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Record growth in Indian oil consumption means Prime Minister Narendra Modi is turning to everything from sewage water to crop residues to blend with diesel and gasoline. Apart from keeping up with the country\u2019s surging demand for fuel, Modi is also trying to fulfill his pledge to meet a 10 per cent reduction in the nation\u2019s energy imports by 2022. As a result, the biofuels industry is set to explode into a $15 billion market by 2020 with government backing.<\/p>\n
Indian oil companies are investing in biofuel refineries to boost ethanol production from non-molasses sources such as agricultural residues and even petrochemicals. But usage of the contemporary fuel has been slow to catch on. Just 2.1 per cent of gasoline is being blended with ethanol, while very little biodiesel is mixed with diesel. The goal this year is 5 per cent blending for both.<\/p>\n
\u201cBamboo will play a role in India\u2019s energy security and promote green fuel use,\u201d Barua said. \u201cIt will be the first experiment, but it\u2019s not a complicated project.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An oil refinery in a region in India that\u2019s more famous for its tea plantations is hoping to put its abundant greenery to new use. A $200 million joint venture between Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. and Finnish technology firm Chempolis Oy will crush bamboo, the longest of the grass family, to produce 60 million liters of ethanol every year in the tea producing state of Assam. That\u2019s enough to meet mandatory requirements for blending with gasoline in the entire northeastern region. The eight states that lie at the foot of the Himalayas together make up about two-thirds of India\u2019s total bamboo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}