Though easily accessible in India, regular fossil fuels release unnecessary toxic by-products as part of their necessary combustion process. Fortunately, for the Greenpeace community and the Ozone layer, a cleaner solution can be implemented without much faff. The solution, rather solutions, is called alternative fuels. Maharashtra Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari is all in to implement alternative fuels in India. According to Gadkari, an environment sans pollution requires the adoption of ethanol, bio-diesel and electricity and he brought up this issue at Nashik’s regional transport office.
Fossil fuels release carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide, amongst other gases.
Buses and trains used in Nagpur and Haldia run on bio-diesel and ethanol fuel. Authorities are mulling over a drainage water-processing project to produce more feasible alternatives like CNG and methane. Though CNG is widely used in many vehicles in India (including public road transport), it still releases significant amount of Co2, unlike ethanol. Efficient production and wide use of this alternative fuel can significantly cut down the release of hazardous pollutants. Usage of ethanol instead of regular fossil fuels can reduce Co2 emissions, say experts in the matter. Another positive attached to ethanol is its nature to burn more cleanly, thus lowering harmful emissions.
Fuel cell technology points to super clean source of energy, but that’s still some time away.
According to reports, there are approximately 180 million vehicles in India at present. Of course, this number increases each day and most of these run on regular fossil fuels. This necessitates the need to import large quantities of crude oil which entail large expenditure by the government. The implementation of alternative fuels will not only benefit us all, but it will also make the air more breathable.
Would you tank up your car with the said alternate fuels, and by when do you think such clean sources of energy will become available in India? Write your opinions and thoughts in the comments section below.
Source – ET auto
Hello Suraj,
Definitely its a very good initiative by our transport minister for cutting down pollution levels. Ethanol is been used in Brazil since 1975 as an alternative fuel. Sweden also makes ethanol from wheat and is being used as an alternative fuel. Whats more, even hypercar maker Koenigsegg also runs there car on E100. BUT!! Do we have really that much of infrastructure to produce ethanol?? We as a country are already struggling for production of home grown sugar…How does the government plan to cope with this? Plus..are all the automobile manufacturers have their fuel systems ready for Ethanol? And the most important point is Ethanol blended fuel drops power and fuel economy as well…Are we fuel conscious people ready for this compromise?…There are many engineering constraints which the government has to work upon before introducing ethanol, or else we will have many issues with current cars’ fuel systems.
Hi Gaurav. Alternate fuels is something we all need to take seriously. Ethanol and bio-diesel are just the tip of this eco-friendly iceberg. We hope this will gain traction in times to come. Cheers!
Now that the summers are getting from bad to worse, we should bring around huge changes in our lifestyle.. It’s high time we get these alternate fuels for our vehicles, pricing should be crucial…