New Delhi: Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said that India should aspire to achieve 100 percent ethanol blending in the near future, as vulnerabilities in oil exports amid the West Asia crisis have made it necessary for the country to become self-reliant in the energy sector.
Gadkari further said the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency III standards, which will be implemented from April 1 next year, will have little impact on electric and flex-fuel vehicles. “In the near future, India should aspire to achieve 100 percent ethanol blending… Today, we are facing an energy crisis due to the war in West Asia, so it is necessary for us to become self-reliant in the energy sector,” he said, while addressing the Indian Federation of Green Energy’s Green Transport Conclave.
In 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched petrol blended with 20 per cent ethanol. Currently, Indian vehicles can run on E20 petrol with minor changes to the engine to prevent corrosion and other issues. Countries like Brazil have 100 percent ethanol blending. “India relies on imports to meet 87 per cent of its oil requirement. We import fossil fuels worth Rs 22 lakh crore, which is also causing pollution. So we need to work on increasing production of alternative fuel and bio-fuel,” Gadkari said.
Noting that green hydrogen is the fuel of the future, Gadkari said there is a need to reduce the cost of running a hydrogen fuel station to make it financially viable. “Transport of hydrogen fuel is a problem. Also, we need to produce 1 kg of hydrogen at $1 dollar, to make India an exporter of energy,” he said, adding that there is a need to produce hydrogen from waste.
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